Why this ride
A 157 km round trip from Douai - roughly 2 h 54 in the saddle. The stops in between: Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi, Beffroi de Béthune, Terril 34 and back through Beffroi de Béthune. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame and Terril 34
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 157 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 54
- 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.
Scenic road chapters
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Au
The ride follows Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Au for 25 km.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 25 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame
Douai is a handsome old town on the river Scarpe, and its belfry is the thing to look for. The tall Gothic tower, topped with a lion, rises above the town hall and holds a carillon of bells, and it is one of the belfries of Belgium and France that UNESCO listed together. Every July the town stages a big parade of giants, huge wicker figures carried through the streets that represent Gayant, a giant from local legend, with his wife and children, a tradition that dates back centuries and which UNESCO recognises as intangible heritage. The Chartreuse museum, in a former monastery, holds paintings and sculpture from the town's long history.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is where the day begins. Next is Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi.
2. Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
Flat country hides its stories well, and the strip of land around Vendin-le-Vieil, Pont-à-Vendin and Annay looks at first like any other piece of French Flanders suburbia: rows of brick houses, a canal, a few fields, a tangle of roads. Look again and the pattern reveals itself. The terraced streets are company housing, laid out by mining firms for their workers, and the low hills on the horizon are not hills at all but spoil heaps from the pits that once ran under this ground. The whole Nord-Pas de Calais coal basin was listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a living cultural landscape, and the area around Auchy-les-Mines and its neighbours is part of that long chain of pits, cités and terrils stretching across the north of France.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Béthune.
3. Beffroi de Béthune
The belfry of Béthune has been standing in the middle of the Grand Place since the fourteenth century, and it has survived more than most of the buildings around it. In 1918 the town centre was almost completely destroyed by German shelling, and the square was rebuilt in the 1920s in a mix of Flemish and Art Deco styles, with tall, ornate façades in brick and stone around the old tower. The belfry, a symbol of the town's ancient freedoms, is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, and climbing its stairs gives a fine view over the rooftops and the flat land around.
Read the complete Beffroi de Béthune write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Béthune. Next is Terril 34.
4. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Béthune.
5. back through Beffroi de Béthune
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Béthune write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Beffroi de Béthune sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi.
6. back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi comes up about 133 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame.
7. Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame closes the day.
Leg by leg
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame to Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame → Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi to Beffroi de Béthune
Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi → Beffroi de Béthune is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Béthune to Terril 34
Beffroi de Béthune → Terril 34 is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 to back through Beffroi de Béthune
Terril 34 → back through Beffroi de Béthune is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Béthune to back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi
back through Beffroi de Béthune → back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi to Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame
back through Paysage et ensemble miniers d’Auchy-les-Mi → Cités de la Clochette et Notre-Dame is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.