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.
From Calais it runs 390 km to Calais; allow about 6 h 43 of riding. The stops in between: Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne, Beffroi de Gravelines, Landhuis met Belfort and Funerary and memory sites of the First Wor. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Most riders know Calais as the place where the ferry or the tunnel train spits them out onto French tarmac, and they head south without a backward glance. Spare it an hour. The town hall is a surprise, a grand building in Flemish Renaissance style finished in the early twentieth century, and its belfry, one of the tallest in the region, rises well above the rooftops as a landmark you can see from the port. It forms part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France, alongside towers that are centuries older.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne.
Boulogne-sur-Mer has two faces: the busy fishing port down by the Liane estuary, the largest in France, and the Haute-Ville on the hill above, enclosed by thirteenth-century ramparts that you can walk all the way around. The belfry stands in the upper town, attached to the town hall, its lower part dating from the thirteenth century and the upper stages added later. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, symbols of the freedom of medieval towns, which rang their bells to call citizens to arms, to work, or to assembly. You can climb it for a view over the rooftops, the port and the Channel.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Gravelines.
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.
about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Gravelines. 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, about halfway. 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 sits at 195 km, 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 comes up about 233 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 285 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beffroi de Gravelines. Next is back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 390 km.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne → Beffroi de Gravelines is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → 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 Gravelines is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Gravelines → back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Boulogne → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.