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 Buyeo it runs 244 km to Buyeo; allow about 4 h 21 of riding. It goes by way of Donam-seown, Mireuksa Temple Site, Seocheon Getbol and back through Mireuksa Temple Site. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Buyeo was the last capital of Baekje, one of the three ancient kingdoms of Korea, and it feels like the sort of town that remembers it. Baekje moved its court here in 538 and held it until it fell to an alliance of Silla and Tang China in 660, and the little river town on the Geum river has been quietly proud of that heritage ever since. The temple site of Jeongnimsa is at the heart of it, and what is left is a grassy rectangle with the foundations of the halls, a stone pagoda and a Buddha figure under a roof.
Read the complete Jeongnimsa Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jeongnimsa Temple Site is where the day begins. Next is Donam-seown.
Donam Seowon is a Confucian academy in the countryside near Nonsan, in South Chungcheong province, and it is one of nine seowon that UNESCO listed together in 2019. Seowon were private academies founded by scholars of the Joseon dynasty, where young men studied the Confucian classics and honoured the memory of great teachers through rituals. Donam was founded in the early seventeenth century to commemorate Kim Jang-saeng, a renowned scholar of rites, and his students, and it played an important role in the intellectual life of the period.
Read the complete Donam-seown write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Donam-seown comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mireuksa Temple Site.
On a wide plain near Iksan, in the south-west of Korea, a large stone pagoda stands beneath a mountain, slightly incomplete and all the more striking for it. This is the west pagoda of Mireuksa, once the largest Buddhist temple of the Baekje kingdom, founded in the early seventh century by King Mu. The pagoda is the oldest and largest surviving stone pagoda in Korea, and after decades of collapse and a cement repair in the early twentieth century, it was carefully dismantled and restored in a project that took around twenty years, finishing in 2019. The temple site is part of the Baekje Historic Areas, listed by UNESCO in 2015.
Read the complete Mireuksa Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Mireuksa Temple Site. Next is Seocheon Getbol.
The tide here goes out so far that the sea simply disappears. The Seocheon getbol, a vast sweep of tidal flats on the west coast of Korea where the Geum river meets the Yellow Sea, is one of four areas listed by UNESCO in 2021 as the Korean Tidal Flats. Twice a day the water withdraws over kilometres of glistening mud and sand, leaving channels, pools and a hum of life: crabs, worms, shellfish and mudskippers, and above all birds.
Read the complete Seocheon Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seocheon Getbol, about halfway. Next is back through Mireuksa Temple Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mireuksa Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mireuksa Temple Site sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Donam-seown.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Donam-seown write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Donam-seown comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jeongnimsa Temple Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jeongnimsa Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jeongnimsa Temple Site closes the day.
Jeongnimsa Temple Site → Donam-seown is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Donam-seown → Mireuksa Temple Site is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mireuksa Temple Site → Seocheon Getbol is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seocheon Getbol → back through Mireuksa Temple Site is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mireuksa Temple Site → back through Donam-seown is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Donam-seown → Jeongnimsa Temple Site is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.