Why this ride
A 245 km round trip from Bergues - roughly 3 h 48 in the saddle. The stops in between: Terril 34, Cité Foch and back through Terril 34.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Beffroi de Bergues and Cité Foch
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 245 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 48
- 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. Beffroi de Bergues
Bergues found a new kind of fame in 2008, when the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, filmed here, became one of the most successful French films of all time, and suddenly the whole country wanted to see the town where a postman from the south is exiled to the cold north and ends up falling in love with it. The film's best-known scenes include the belfry, from which the hero rings the carillon, and the town still welcomes visitors who come in search of the locations. But Bergues was a proud place long before cinema arrived. It is a small fortified town in French Flanders, surrounded by ramparts and canals, with fortifications improved by Vauban in the seventeenth century.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Beffroi de Bergues is where the day begins. Next is Terril 34.
2. Terril 34
A terril is a slag heap, a mountain of waste rock dumped beside a coal mine, and in the flat land of northern France these man-made hills are the closest thing to relief for miles around. Terril 34 is one of hundreds that dot the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, a UNESCO site since 2012, which recognises not only the heaps but also the pithead frames, miners' housing estates, schools, churches and railway lines that made up the landscape of coal mining in the region for nearly three centuries. This one sits near Norrent-Fontes and Lillers, at the western end of the basin, where it meets the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Terril 34 comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cité Foch.
3. Cité Foch
Row upon row of identical brick houses, each with its small garden, outbuilding and front door painted in the colour of the mining company: that is a cité minière, and Cité Foch, between Hénin-Beaumont and Montigny-en-Gohelle, is one of the many hundreds that the coal companies built across northern France. They were designed to house miners and their families close to the pits, and they came in different forms over the decades, from the long terraces of the nineteenth century, the corons, to the garden cities of the early twentieth century, with semi-detached houses, wide streets and green spaces. Many of these neighbourhoods are included in the UNESCO listing of the mining basin.
Read the complete Cité Foch write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Cité Foch. Next is back through Terril 34.
4. back through Terril 34
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Terril 34, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de Bergues.
5. Beffroi de Bergues
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Beffroi de Bergues. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Beffroi de Bergues to Terril 34
Beffroi de Bergues → Terril 34 is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 to Cité Foch
Terril 34 → Cité Foch is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cité Foch to back through Terril 34
Cité Foch → back through Terril 34 is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 34 to Beffroi de Bergues
back through Terril 34 → Beffroi de Bergues is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.