Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama and Horyu-ji Area

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama

   Cherry trees are the whole point of Yoshino, and they are planted by the thousand up the side of a ridge in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, about five kilometres from the little town of Yoshino and an hour or two from Osaka. Over some three hundred years, pilgrims planted the sacred shidarezakura and the mountain cherry as offerings to the god of the mountain, and in the first half of April the slopes turn pink, white and green in four layers from the bottom to the top, a wave of flowering that rises up the hillside over about a fortnight.

   Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is where the day begins. Next is Kitora Mounded Tomb.

2. 2. Kitora Mounded Tomb

   Kitora is a small, round burial mound on a hillside in Asuka, the cradle of the Japanese state, south of Nara. From the outside, it looks like a grassy hump, unremarkable. Inside, when researchers inserted a fibre-optic camera in 1983, they found a stone chamber painted with some of the most extraordinary images in Japanese art: the four guardian animals of the cardinal directions, the black tortoise-snake of the north, the blue dragon of the east, the white tiger of the west and the red phoenix of the south, along with figures of the twelve zodiac animals with human bodies, and on the ceiling an astronomical chart showing the constellations, one of the oldest such star charts in the world. The tomb dates from the late seventh or early eighth century, and its occupant remains unknown. To preserve them, the paintings were removed from the walls and restored, and some are displayed at the Shijin no Yakata, a museum built next to the tomb.

   Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kitora Mounded Tomb comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Horyu-ji Area.

3. 3. Hōryū-ji Area

   The buildings at Hōryū-ji are around thirteen hundred years old, and some of them are among the oldest wooden structures anywhere in the world. Founded in the early seventh century by Prince Shōtoku, a regent remembered as a champion of Buddhism and a founding figure of the Japanese state, the temple was rebuilt after a fire later in the same century, and parts of that rebuilding still stand. In 1993 it became one of the first sites in Japan to be listed by UNESCO, as the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.

   Read the complete Horyu-ji Area write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 47 km into the recorded legs you reach Horyu-ji Area. Next is back through Kitora Mounded Tomb.

4. 4. back through Kitora Mounded Tomb

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kitora Mounded Tomb write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kitora Mounded Tomb, late in the day. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.

5. 5. Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama. That is the ride.