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 313 km round trip from Kaesŏng - roughly 5 h 24 in the saddle. On the way it passes Kanghwa Dolmen Sites, Jangneung Cluster, Jongmyo Shrine and Hwaseong Fortress. It crosses from North Korea into South Korea - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Kaesong was the capital of Korea for nearly five centuries, long before Seoul, and the Koryo Songgyungwan is the best reminder of that age. The compound began in 992 as the Gukjagam, the national academy, in the Goryeo dynasty, which gave Korea its Western name, and it was turned into the Songgyungwan in the late fourteenth century. The present buildings, with their curved tile roofs, wooden pillars and ancient ginkgo and zelkova trees, mostly date from the seventeenth century, after the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, and the site is now a museum of the Koryo period, with celadon, metalwork and printing blocks on display. Kaesong's historic monuments and sites were inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2013.
Read the complete Koryo Songgyungwan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koryo Songgyungwan is where the day begins. Next is Kanghwa Dolmen Sites.
Ganghwa Island lies in the mouth of the Han River, just north-west of Seoul and Incheon, and on a clear day you can look across a narrow channel of tidal water straight into North Korea. The town of Kaesong is barely twenty-five kilometres away. That closeness gives the island an edge, with watch posts and fences along parts of the shore, but its fame is much older. The Ganghwa dolmens, together with those at Gochang and Hwasun in the south, were listed by UNESCO in 2000, and Korea holds a remarkable share of all the dolmens known in the world.
Read the complete Kanghwa Dolmen Sites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jangneung Cluster.
The Joseon dynasty ruled Korea for over five hundred years, and its kings and queens were buried in carefully chosen spots around the capital, in tombs designed according to Confucian ritual and the principles of geomancy, with a hill behind, water in front and mountains framing the view. In 2009, forty of these tombs were listed by UNESCO as the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty. Jangneung, in Gimpo, just west of Seoul, is the tomb of Wonjong, the father of King Injo, who was elevated to royal rank after his death. It is a quiet, wooded place, with a grassy burial mound, stone statues of officials and animals, and a T-shaped shrine where ancestral rites were held.
Read the complete Jangneung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Jangneung Cluster. Next is Jongmyo Shrine.
In the middle of busy central Seoul, behind a gate on Jongno street, lies a forest of trees and a long, low hall that seems to come from another world. Jongmyo is the royal ancestral shrine of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled Korea from 1392 to 1910, and its main hall, the Jeongjeon, houses the spirit tablets of kings and queens in a row of identical rooms behind a single facade of red pillars, stretching for more than a hundred metres. It is one of the longest wooden buildings of its kind in Asia, and its austerity is deeply impressive.
Read the complete Jongmyo Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jongmyo Shrine, 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 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Jongmyo Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jongmyo Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jongmyo Shrine comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 237 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Jangneung Cluster. Next is back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kanghwa Dolmen Sites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites, late in the day. Next is Koryo Songgyungwan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koryo Songgyungwan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 313 km.
Koryo Songgyungwan → Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → Jangneung Cluster is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jangneung Cluster → Jongmyo Shrine is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jongmyo Shrine → Hwaseong Fortress is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hwaseong Fortress → back through Jongmyo Shrine is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jongmyo Shrine → back through Jangneung Cluster is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jangneung Cluster → back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → Koryo Songgyungwan is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.