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 Brussels it runs 121 km to Brussels; allow about 1 h 55 of riding. It goes by way of Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, Grand Béguinage of Leuven and back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
The beeches in the Sonian Forest grow so tall and straight that people call it the cathedral forest, and once you stand under them on a misty autumn morning the name stops sounding like tourist talk. This great woodland on the southeastern edge of Brussels covers thousands of hectares, and most of the famous columns of grey trunks were planted in the late eighteenth century, when the Austrian Habsburgs ruled these lands and their foresters reshaped the old wood. A few patches, including the Tict reserve near La Hulpe and Waterloo, are left to grow wild with no felling at all, and they form part of the UNESCO listing for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe, a chain of reserves stretching across the continent.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grand Béguinage of Leuven.
Step through the gate of the Groot Begijnhof in Leuven and the city noise drops away. Cobbled lanes, small brick houses with white window frames and stepped gables, little bridges over the arms of the river Dijle, and a Gothic church in the middle: this is one of the largest béguinages in the Low Countries, part of the Flemish Béguinages group listed by UNESCO in 1998.
Read the complete Grand Béguinage of Leuven write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 60 km into the recorded legs you reach Grand Béguinage of Leuven. Next is back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict, late in the day. Next is 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 at Hôtel van Eetvelde. That is the ride.
Hôtel van Eetvelde → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Grand Béguinage of Leuven is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grand Béguinage of Leuven → back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Hôtel van Eetvelde is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.