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 183 km round trip from Gravelines - roughly 3 h 09 in the saddle. The stops in between: Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque, Landhuis met Belfort, Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor and back through Landhuis met Belfort. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque.
The belfry of Saint-Éloi stands alone, which is odd for a church tower. It was originally attached to the church, but after fires and rebuilding in earlier centuries, a street was cut between them, and the tower became a separate landmark. Today it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, and its carillon plays tunes across the centre of Dunkirk, including a local song. You can climb to the top for views over the port, the city and the North Sea.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Landhuis met Belfort. 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.
Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor, about halfway. 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 sits at 122 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque comes up about 159 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Beffroi de Gravelines closes the day.
Beffroi de Gravelines → Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque → Landhuis met Belfort is 28 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 → 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 → back through Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’église St-Eloi de Dunkerque → Beffroi de Gravelines is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.