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: 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.
From Seoul it runs 271 km to Seoul; allow about 5 h 21 of riding. On the way it passes Namhansanseong, Hwaseong Fortress, Yeongneung Cluster and back through Hwaseong Fortress. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
31 km on Changdeokgung Palace Complex → Namhansanseong.
Changdeokgung was built in 1405 as a secondary palace for the Joseon kings, and it ended up being the one they actually liked living in. Where the main palace, Gyeongbokgung, was laid out on a strict axis, Changdeokgung was fitted into the foot of the hills, following the folds of the ground, and its halls, gates and courtyards feel more relaxed and more human as a result. After the Japanese invasions of the 1590s burned all of Seoul's palaces, this was the first to be rebuilt, and it served as the main royal residence for some two and a half centuries.
Read the complete Changdeokgung Palace Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Changdeokgung Palace Complex is where the day begins. Next is Namhansanseong.
Just beyond the south-eastern edge of Seoul, the city stops abruptly against wooded mountains, and on top of them runs a stone wall with gates, watchtowers and command posts. Namhansanseong was built as an emergency capital, a mountain fortress where the king and court could retreat in time of invasion, and in the winter of 1636 to 1637 it was put to the test. King Injo fled here from the invading Qing army and held out for forty-seven days before hunger and the fall of other strongholds forced him to surrender. The fortress became a World Heritage Site in 2014.
Read the complete Namhansanseong write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Namhansanseong comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Hwaseong Fortress. Next is Yeongneung Cluster.
The Yeongneung cluster lies in the countryside of Yeoju, a town on the Namhan River east of Seoul, and it is the resting place of King Sejong the Great, who reigned from 1418 to 1450 and is remembered above all for the creation of the Korean alphabet, hangul, announced in the 1440s. Koreans hold the king in deep affection, and a statue of him sits in the middle of Seoul. His tomb here is a joint one, shared with his queen, and it sits in a beautiful pine-covered setting with stone officials, horses and lanterns lined along the approach. The nearby tomb of King Hyojong, known as Nyeongneung, is part of the same area.
Read the complete Yeongneung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yeongneung Cluster, about halfway. Next is back through Hwaseong Fortress.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hwaseong Fortress write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hwaseong Fortress sits at 181 km, about halfway. Next is back through Namhansanseong.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Namhansanseong write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Namhansanseong comes up about 240 km into the recorded legs. Next is Changdeokgung Palace Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Changdeokgung Palace Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Changdeokgung Palace Complex closes the day.
Changdeokgung Palace Complex → Namhansanseong is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Namhansanseong → Hwaseong Fortress is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hwaseong Fortress → Yeongneung Cluster is 63 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Yeongneung Cluster → back through Hwaseong Fortress is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Hwaseong Fortress → back through Namhansanseong is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Namhansanseong → Changdeokgung Palace Complex is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.