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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Seoul it runs 167 km to Seoul; allow about 2 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments, Kaesong Namdae, Sungyang Sowon and Koryo Songgyungwan. It crosses from South Korea into North Korea - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Seoul is a capital that sits in a bowl of granite mountains, and that is why it feels so layered. Bukhansan rises behind the old palaces to the north, Namsan stands in the middle with its tower, and the Han River slides through the south. The city has been the Korean capital since 1394, when the Joseon dynasty chose it, and the royal palace of Gyeongbokgung was built soon after. A fortress wall still climbs some of the ridges, and walking even a short section gives a fine view over the roofs. Insadong, with its tea houses and craft shops, and the hanok streets of Bukchon preserve the old style of wooden courtyard houses among the modern towers.
Read the complete Seoul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seoul is where the day begins. Next is Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments.
The Sonjuk Bridge is a small stone bridge in the Korean city of Kaesong, and it has the most bloodstained history of any bridge on the peninsula. In 1392, as the Goryeo dynasty collapsed and General Yi Seong-gye prepared to found the Joseon dynasty, his son Yi Bang-won invited the scholar Jeong Mong-ju, a loyalist of the old dynasty, to a meeting. On his way home Jeong was struck down on this bridge, and tradition says that the dark stains on the stone are his blood, and that bamboo grew from the spot. Jeong became a symbol of loyalty, and a stone memorial and pavilion were built beside the bridge in later centuries.
Read the complete Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kaesong Namdae.
Few capitals in Korea's history have left so little room for an ordinary traveller. Kaesong, the Goryeo capital from the early tenth century to the late fourteenth, stands in the south of North Korea, a few kilometres from the demilitarised zone and the village of Panmunjom, and its Namdae Gate, the great southern gate of the old city, is the best-known monument of the place. The gate was first raised in 1394, just after the Goryeo dynasty fell, and it has been repaired many times, most recently after wartime damage. It stands in the middle of a traffic circle, with its heavy tiled roof and a bell nearby.
Read the complete Kaesong Namdae Gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Kaesong Namdae. Next is Sungyang Sowon.
Jeong Mong-ju was a scholar and loyal official of the Goryeo dynasty, and on the evening of April 1392 he was killed on a stone bridge in Kaesong by henchmen of Yi Seong-gye, the general who was about to found the Joseon dynasty. Jeong had refused to switch sides. Legend says that his blood stained the stone of the bridge, Seonjukgyo, and that it is still visible, and that bamboo grew from the spot, which gave the bridge its name. Sungyang Seowon, the academy beside it, was built to honour him. It was originally his house and became a shrine and school, and still shows Korean loyalty as a theme: a dead man whose refusal made him a hero.
Read the complete Sungyang Sowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sungyang Sowon, about halfway. Next is Koryo Songgyungwan.
Kaesong was the capital of Korea for nearly five centuries, long before Seoul, and the Koryo Songgyungwan is the best reminder of that age. The compound began in 992 as the Gukjagam, the national academy, in the Goryeo dynasty, which gave Korea its Western name, and it was turned into the Songgyungwan in the late fourteenth century. The present buildings, with their curved tile roofs, wooden pillars and ancient ginkgo and zelkova trees, mostly date from the seventeenth century, after the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, and the site is now a museum of the Koryo period, with celadon, metalwork and printing blocks on display. Kaesong's historic monuments and sites were inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2013.
Read the complete Koryo Songgyungwan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koryo Songgyungwan sits at 84 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sungyang Sowon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sungyang Sowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sungyang Sowon comes up about 87 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kaesong Namdae.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kaesong Namdae Gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kaesong Namdae. Next is back through Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments, late in the day. Next is Seoul.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seoul write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 167 km.
Seoul → Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sungyang Sowon → Koryo Songgyungwan is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koryo Songgyungwan → back through Sungyang Sowon is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonjuk Bridge and Phyochung Monuments → Seoul is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.