Why this ride
A 344 km round trip from Seongnam-si - roughly 5 h 50 in the saddle. It goes by way of Hwaseong Fortress, Seooreung Cluster, Seosan Getbol and Kanghwa Dolmen Sites. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Area 2 and Kanghwa Dolmen Sites
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 344 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 5 h 50
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Area 2
Built and expanded as an emergency capital in the early seventeenth century, its walls run for kilometres along the ridges, with gates, command posts and temples inside, and it became a World Heritage site in 2014. The fortress is remembered for a bitter episode: in the winter of 1636 to 1637, King Injo fled here as the armies of the Qing invaded, and after a siege of more than forty days in the cold, he came down and submitted, kneeling before the Qing emperor. Koreans still regard it as a moment of national humiliation and resilience at the same time.
Read the complete Area 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Area 2 is where the day begins. Next is Hwaseong Fortress.
2. Hwaseong Fortress
Hwaseong is a love letter from a son to his father, written in stone. In 1762, Crown Prince Sado was locked in a rice chest by his own father, King Yeongjo, and left to die, one of the darkest episodes in Korean royal history. His son, who became King Jeongjo, never forgot, and he moved his father's tomb to a site near Suwon and built a grand fortress there, completed in 1796, intended perhaps as a new capital. The engineer and scholar Jeong Yak-yong used cranes and pulleys to speed up construction, and the walls, gates, towers and bastions combine Korean, Chinese and Western ideas of fortification. UNESCO listed it in 1997.
Read the complete Hwaseong Fortress write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hwaseong Fortress comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Seooreung Cluster.
3. Seooreung Cluster
Joseon kings chose their final resting places with the same care they gave to their palaces, and the Seooreung cluster in Goyang, just north-west of Seoul, shows how. The name means the five tombs of the west, and the forested grounds contain the burial mounds of several Joseon kings and queens from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Each tomb follows the principles of pungsu, the Korean form of geomancy: a mountain behind for protection, open land in front, ideally with water flowing past. The mound sits on a terrace, surrounded by stone figures of officials, warriors and animals standing guard, and below is a T-shaped shrine where rites were held. The forty Joseon royal tombs were added to the World Heritage list together in 2009.
Read the complete Seooreung Cluster write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Seooreung Cluster. Next is Seosan Getbol.
4. Seosan Getbol
Korea's west coast has some of the largest tides on earth. Twice a day the Yellow Sea pulls back for kilometres, exposing vast shining mud flats, the getbol, laced with channels and alive with crabs, mudskippers, worms and shellfish. UNESCO has listed a series of these Korean tidal flats for their extraordinary biodiversity and for the millions of migratory shorebirds that stop here to feed on their way between Siberia and Australia.
Read the complete Seosan Getbol write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Seosan Getbol, about halfway. Next is Kanghwa Dolmen Sites.
5. Kanghwa Dolmen Sites
Ganghwa Island lies in the mouth of the Han River, just north-west of Seoul and Incheon, and on a clear day you can look across a narrow channel of tidal water straight into North Korea. The town of Kaesong is barely twenty-five kilometres away. That closeness gives the island an edge, with watch posts and fences along parts of the shore, but its fame is much older. The Ganghwa dolmens, together with those at Gochang and Hwasun in the south, were listed by UNESCO in 2000, and Korea holds a remarkable share of all the dolmens known in the world.
Read the complete Kanghwa Dolmen Sites write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites sits at 176 km, about halfway. Next is back through Seosan Getbol.
6. back through Seosan Getbol
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seosan Getbol write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Seosan Getbol comes up about 221 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Seooreung Cluster.
7. back through Seooreung Cluster
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seooreung Cluster write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 256 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Seooreung Cluster. Next is back through Hwaseong Fortress.
8. back through Hwaseong Fortress
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hwaseong Fortress write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Hwaseong Fortress, late in the day. Next is Area 2.
9. Area 2
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Area 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 344 km.
Leg by leg
Area 2 to Hwaseong Fortress
Area 2 → Hwaseong Fortress is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hwaseong Fortress to Seooreung Cluster
Hwaseong Fortress → Seooreung Cluster is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seooreung Cluster to Seosan Getbol
Seooreung Cluster → Seosan Getbol is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seosan Getbol to Kanghwa Dolmen Sites
Seosan Getbol → Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites to back through Seosan Getbol
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → back through Seosan Getbol is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seosan Getbol to back through Seooreung Cluster
back through Seosan Getbol → back through Seooreung Cluster is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seooreung Cluster to back through Hwaseong Fortress
back through Seooreung Cluster → back through Hwaseong Fortress is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hwaseong Fortress to Area 2
back through Hwaseong Fortress → Area 2 is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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