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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 340 km round trip from Kaesŏng - roughly 5 h 52 in the saddle. The stops in between: Jangneung Cluster, Seosan Getbol, Changdeokgung Palace Complex and Hwaseong Fortress. It crosses from North Korea into South Korea - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
This part of the ride is 48 km of Seosan Getbol → Changdeokgung Palace Complex.
Few capitals in Korea's history have left so little room for an ordinary traveller. Kaesong, the Goryeo capital from the early tenth century to the late fourteenth, stands in the south of North Korea, a few kilometres from the demilitarised zone and the village of Panmunjom, and its Namdae Gate, the great southern gate of the old city, is the best-known monument of the place. The gate was first raised in 1394, just after the Goryeo dynasty fell, and it has been repaired many times, most recently after wartime damage. It stands in the middle of a traffic circle, with its heavy tiled roof and a bell nearby.
Read the complete Kaesong Namdae Gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kaesong Namdae is where the day begins. Next is Jangneung Cluster.
North-west of Seoul, close to where the Imjin river flows into the Han and the demilitarised zone cuts the Korean peninsula in two, lies a royal tomb: Jangneung, the resting place of King Injo, who ruled Joseon in the seventeenth century, and his queen. Injo's reign was marked by invasions from the Manchu, and he was forced to humiliate himself before the Qing emperor in 1637, a defeat that still resonates in Korean memory. His tomb, like the other Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2009, is a grassy mound on a hillside, guarded by stone figures of officials, warriors and animals, with a T-shaped shrine below.
Read the complete Jangneung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jangneung Cluster comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Seosan Getbol.
Korea's west coast has some of the largest tides on earth. Twice a day the Yellow Sea pulls back for kilometres, exposing vast shining mud flats, the getbol, laced with channels and alive with crabs, mudskippers, worms and shellfish. UNESCO has listed a series of these Korean tidal flats for their extraordinary biodiversity and for the millions of migratory shorebirds that stop here to feed on their way between Siberia and Australia.
Read the complete Seosan Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Seosan Getbol. Next is Changdeokgung Palace Complex.
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, about halfway. 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.
Hwaseong Fortress sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Changdeokgung Palace Complex comes up about 217 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Seosan Getbol.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seosan Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 265 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Seosan Getbol. Next is back through Jangneung Cluster.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jangneung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jangneung Cluster, late in the day. Next is Kaesong Namdae.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kaesong Namdae Gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 340 km.
Kaesong Namdae Gate → Jangneung Cluster is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jangneung Cluster → Seosan Getbol is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seosan Getbol → Changdeokgung Palace Complex is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Changdeokgung Palace Complex → Hwaseong Fortress is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hwaseong Fortress → back through Changdeokgung Palace Complex is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Changdeokgung Palace Complex → back through Seosan Getbol is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seosan Getbol → back through Jangneung Cluster is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jangneung Cluster → Kaesong Namdae Gate is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.