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.
From Aachen it runs 186 km to Aachen; allow about 3 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Blegny-Mine, Beguinage de Sint-Truiden and back through Blegny-Mine. It crosses from Germany into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 37 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beguinage de Sint-Truiden.
At the edge of Sint-Truiden, a market town in the fruit country of Haspengouw, a ring of low brick houses surrounds a large grassy courtyard with trees and a Gothic church in the middle. This is the béguinage, one of the Flemish béguinages listed together by UNESCO, where for centuries communities of laywomen lived devout lives of prayer and work without taking permanent vows. It is one of the largest and best preserved in the region, and it has a calm, almost village-like feel.
Read the complete Beguinage de Sint-Truiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Beguinage de Sint-Truiden. 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, late in the day. Next is Aachen Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aachen Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Aachen Cathedral. That is the ride.
Aachen Cathedral → Blegny-Mine is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Blegny-Mine → Beguinage de Sint-Truiden is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beguinage de Sint-Truiden → back through Blegny-Mine is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Blegny-Mine → Aachen Cathedral is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.