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.
A 191 km round trip from Mechelen - roughly 2 h 59 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hôtel van Eetvelde, Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison, Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent and back through Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
In the thirteenth century, a remarkable movement spread across the Low Countries. Women, often unmarried or widowed, chose to live together in communities devoted to prayer and work, without taking the permanent vows of nuns, keeping their property and the freedom to leave. They were called béguines, and their walled settlements, the béguinages, became towns within towns. The Groot Begijnhof of Mechelen, the great béguinage, is one of thirteen in Flanders listed by UNESCO, and at its height it housed well over a thousand women, making it one of the largest communities of its kind.
Read the complete Flemish Béguinages write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Flemish Béguinages is where the day begins. Next is Hôtel van Eetvelde.
Victor Horta built this house between 1895 and 1898 for Edmond van Eetvelde, a senior official who ran the affairs of King Leopold II's Congo Free State from Brussels, and it is impossible now to look at it without holding both of those facts at once: one of the most daring houses of the Art Nouveau age, paid for in a world shaped by the brutal exploitation of the Congo. Hôtel van Eetvelde stands on the Avenue Palmerston near the Square Ambiorix, in the European quarter, and with three other Horta houses it was inscribed in 2000 as the Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta.
Read the complete Hôtel van Eetvelde write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hôtel van Eetvelde comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison.
Aalst's Schepenhuis, the old aldermen's house on the Grote Markt, is reckoned to be the oldest surviving town hall in the Low Countries, its oldest parts going back to the thirteenth century, and its belfry, added later, carries the bells that once regulated the town's life. Together they are part of the UNESCO listing of the Belfries of Belgium and France. In front of them stands a statue of Dirk Martens, who set up one of the first printing presses in the Southern Netherlands here in the 1470s and later printed works by Erasmus and Thomas More.
Read the complete Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison. Next is Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.
The Great Béguinage of Sint-Amandsberg looks like a small walled town of its own, tucked into a residential suburb just east of the centre of Ghent. When the city expanded in the 1870s and the old béguinage of St Elisabeth was in the way, the beguines, lay religious women who lived in community without taking permanent vows, moved here to a new complex of neo-Gothic houses, convents and a church, all laid out around streets, squares and gardens behind a wall and gate. The move was funded by the Duke of Arenberg, and the whole place was finished in just a few years. It is one of the thirteen Flemish Béguinages on the UNESCO list since 1998, and although the beguines are gone, the houses are still lived in, and the atmosphere is calm and quiet.
Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent, about halfway. Next is back through Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison sits at 129 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hôtel van Eetvelde.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel van Eetvelde write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hôtel van Eetvelde comes up about 158 km into the recorded legs. Next is Flemish Béguinages.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Flemish Béguinages write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Flemish Béguinages closes the day.
Flemish Béguinages → Hôtel van Eetvelde is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel van Eetvelde → Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison → Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent → back through Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Belfort en Schepenhuis / Beffroi et maison → back through Hôtel van Eetvelde is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel van Eetvelde → Flemish Béguinages is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.