La Grand-Place and Stadhuis

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. La Grand-Place

   The Grand-Place in Brussels is a square so densely decorated with gold, stone and sculpture that visitors tend to stop at the entrance and just stare. The Gothic town hall, with its slender tower, fills one side, and the guildhalls of the old trades, brewers, bakers, butchers and others, line the rest, each topped with gilded statues and ornate gables. Most of it was rebuilt after a French bombardment in 1695 destroyed the centre of the city, and the speed and ambition of the reconstruction is part of the story.

   Read the complete La Grand-Place write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   La Grand-Place is where the day begins. Next is Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadhuis.

3. 3. Stadhuis

   Bruges is half an hour north, and the two make a good pairing, but Roeselare deserves to be taken on its own terms: a working town of some fifty-six thousand people, built on textiles, food processing and trade, with a town hall on its market square that anchors the centre. Like most Flemish towns, Roeselare grew around a market and a civic building that announced the burghers' independence from lords and bishops, and the tradition of the town hall as the symbol of local self-government is still very much alive here.

   Read the complete Stadhuis write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 130 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadhuis. Next is back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.

4. 4. back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent, late in the day. Next is La Grand-Place.

5. 5. La Grand-Place

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete La Grand-Place write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at La Grand-Place. That is the ride.