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.
A 325 km round trip from Gravelines - roughly 5 h 36 in the saddle. The stops in between: Landhuis met Belfort, Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor, Het Belfort of Halletoren and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Gravelines sits right where the river Aa meets the Channel, between Calais and Dunkirk, and it still wears its walls. The town is wrapped in Vauban-era fortifications, a star of brick ramparts, bastions and water-filled moats that you can walk or ride around, and in the middle of it rises the belfry, one of the towers listed by UNESCO among the belfries of northern France and Belgium. It is a solid, sober tower rather than a showpiece, built to watch, warn and ring the hours for a frontier town that changed hands more than once.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Gravelines is where the day begins. Next is Landhuis met Belfort.
Veurne's market square is one of the most complete in Flanders, and the old Landhuis, with its belfry rising behind it, is the reason. The Landhuis was the seat of the castellany, the regional administration that governed the surrounding countryside, and its belfry is part of the group of Belgian and French belfries protected by UNESCO. Around the square stand the town hall, the old meat hall and a row of gabled houses, many dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Veurne was under Spanish rule, which explains the stepped gables and ornate facades.
Read the complete Landhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Landhuis met Belfort comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Every evening at eight o'clock, traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ypres, and buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post in memory of the soldiers of the British Empire who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The ceremony has been held almost every evening since 1928, interrupted only during the German occupation in the Second World War, and it draws crowds of all ages, many of them descendants of the fallen. The gate itself is inscribed with the names of more than fifty thousand soldiers whose bodies were never found. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage inscription of the Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War, inscribed in 2023.
Read the complete Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. Next is Het Belfort of Halletoren.
On the Grote Markt of Kortrijk a tower stands alone in the middle of the square, as if the building it belonged to had wandered off. In a sense it did. The Belfort, or Halletoren, was once part of the cloth hall, the trading heart of a medieval textile town, and when the hall disappeared the tower stayed. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France on the UNESCO list, and it has a pair of local celebrities at the top: two gilded figures, Manten and Kalle, who strike the hours on the bell. Kortrijk people are fond of them, and you will see their likenesses on all sorts of souvenirs.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Het Belfort of Halletoren, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.
Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through Het Belfort of Halletoren.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Het Belfort of Halletoren write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren comes up about 197 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 233 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. Next is back through Landhuis met Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Landhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Landhuis met Belfort, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de Gravelines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 325 km.
Beffroi de Gravelines → Landhuis met Belfort is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Landhuis met Belfort → Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → Het Belfort of Halletoren is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Het Belfort of Halletoren → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille → back through Het Belfort of Halletoren is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Het Belfort of Halletoren → back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor → back through Landhuis met Belfort is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Landhuis met Belfort → Beffroi de Gravelines is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.