CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
369 km from Yoshino-chō to Yoshino-chō, about 4 h 38 of riding. On the way it passes Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N and back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. The line favours views over speed.
In early April the mountain at Yoshino turns pink from the bottom up, wave after wave of wild cherry blossom climbing the ridge, and for a few days the whole of central Nara Prefecture seems to hold its breath. The trees are mostly the white mountain cherry known as shiro-yamazakura, planted over many centuries as offerings to Zao Gongen, the fierce mountain deity of the Shugendo tradition, and by tradition thousands of them line the slopes in four zones, lower, middle, upper and inner, so that the bloom moves uphill over about three weeks. Yoshino-jinja and the Mikumari shrine belong to the mountain's older story, a place for water and the pleas of farmers, since the name Mikumari is linked with the dividing of water.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
The Iseji is the eastern branch of the old pilgrimage roads to the three great Kumano shrines, running down the coast of the Kii Peninsula from the Grand Shrines of Ise to Kumano. For centuries, pilgrims followed it through forests and over passes, and stretches of its stone paving still survive in the hills, laid to keep the path usable in one of the rainiest parts of Japan. Owase, a little up the coast, regularly ranks among the wettest towns in the country, and the moss on the stones and the dripping cedar forests show it. The Iseji forms part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I comes up about 105 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N.
The Kumano Kodō is a web of ancient pilgrimage trails across the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, south of Osaka, leading to the three grand shrines of Kumano: Hongū, Hayatama and Nachi. For over a thousand years, emperors, aristocrats and ordinary pilgrims walked these paths through cedar and cypress forest, stopping at small subsidiary shrines along the way. The Nakahechi, the most popular of the routes, leaves the coast near Tanabe and climbs inland through the hills. It is part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, listed by UNESCO in 2004, one of only two pilgrimage routes on the list along with the Camino de Santiago, with which it is twinned.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 184 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, late in the day. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja. That is the ride.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - N → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshino Mikumari-jinja is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.