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.
351 km from Kaesŏng to Kaesŏng, about 6 h 03 of riding. It goes by way of 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.
48 km on Seosan Getbol → Changdeokgung Palace Complex.
Wang Kon, the founder of Goryeo, was a merchant's son from the coast who became a warlord and then a king, and he took the throne in 918 after the collapse of the earlier Silla order. The kingdom he built gave the modern word Korea its name. When he died in 943, he was buried on the hillside west of his capital at Kaesong, and the tomb has been rebuilt more than once. The present mausoleum, called Hyonjongnung, with its stone figures and a mound looking over the hills, was extensively restored in the 1990s, a fact that guides sometimes mention and sometimes do not.
Read the complete Mausoleum of King Wang Kon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mausoleum of King Wang Kon 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 40 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 82 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 176 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 222 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 270 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 Mausoleum of King Wang Kon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mausoleum of King Wang Kon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 351 km.
Mausoleum of King Wang Kon → Jangneung Cluster is 40 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 → Mausoleum of King Wang Kon is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.