CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Maastricht it runs 195 km to Maastricht; allow about 3 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Béguinage de Tongeren, Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto, Blegny-Mine and Aachen Cathedral. It crosses Netherlands, Belgium and Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
For 28 km this is Belgian Ardennes Scenic Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
37 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it. Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Maastricht sits in the thin tail of the Netherlands that squeezes between Belgium and Germany, and you feel the border pressure the moment you leave town. Within a quarter of an hour on a bike you can be in Wallonia, and Aachen is not much further east. The Maas, which the French call the Meuse, runs straight through the middle, and the name of the city is simply the Latin for crossing the river. Romans put a bridge here, and the Sint Servaasbrug, still carrying traffic in its medieval form, is often called the oldest bridge in the country.
Read the complete Maastricht write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maastricht is where the day begins. Next is Béguinage de Tongeren.
Tongeren calls itself the oldest town in Belgium, and it has a Roman name, a Gallic hero and a weekly antiques market to back up the claim. Under the Romans it was Atuatuca Tungrorum, and in the main square stands a romantic nineteenth-century statue of Ambiorix, the chieftain who gave Julius Caesar a very bad winter. A few minutes' walk from all that pomp lies the béguinage, a quiet quarter of low brick houses, cobbled lanes and small gardens that once housed communities of beguines, religious women who lived a semi-independent life without taking the full vows of nuns.
Read the complete Béguinage de Tongeren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Tongeren comes up 22 km in. Next is Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto.
Tongeren likes to remind you that it is the oldest town in Belgium, and it has a strong claim. The Romans founded a settlement here, Atuatuca Tungrorum, on the road between Cologne and Bavay, and the remains of its walls can still be seen around the town. Before that, the area was home to the Eburones, a Celtic tribe whose chieftain Ambiorix famously ambushed and destroyed a Roman legion in 54 BC. His statue, a heroic nineteenth-century figure with a winged helmet and a magnificent moustache, stands in the main square, the Grote Markt.
Read the complete Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
45 km in you reach Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto. Next is Blegny-Mine.
Blegny-Mine is one of the few places in Europe where you can still go down a real coal mine in the lift cage, with former miners as your guides. The mine, in the Pays de Herve northeast of Liège, closed in 1980, and it was soon turned into a museum, with guided tours that take you down to galleries tens of metres underground, where you can see the machinery, the narrow seams and the conditions in which miners worked. In 2012, it was listed by UNESCO as one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, along with Grand-Hornu, Bois-du-Luc and Bois du Cazier. It is a powerful reminder of how coal built the industrial wealth of Belgium, and at what cost.
Read the complete Blegny-Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Blegny-Mine, about halfway. Next is Aachen Cathedral.
Charlemagne chose Aachen for its hot springs, and the springs still bubble up under the old town, smelling faintly of sulphur at the fountains where they surface. Around the end of the eighth century he built a palace here and, at its heart, a chapel: an octagon under a dome, ringed by a sixteen-sided ambulatory, designed by Odo of Metz with columns and marble shipped from Ravenna and Rome. That chapel is the core of Aachen Cathedral, and in 1978 it became the first site in Germany on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Aachen Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Aachen Cathedral sits at 90 km, about halfway. Next is back through Blegny-Mine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Blegny-Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Blegny-Mine comes up 112 km in. Next is back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
134 km in you reach back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto. Next is back through Béguinage de Tongeren.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Tongeren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Béguinage de Tongeren, late in the day. Next is Maastricht.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maastricht write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 195 km.
Maastricht → Béguinage de Tongeren is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto → Blegny-Mine is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Blegny-Mine → Aachen Cathedral is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aachen Cathedral → back through Blegny-Mine is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Blegny-Mine → back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Béguinage de Tongeren → Maastricht is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.