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 130 km round trip from Kaesŏng - roughly 2 h 14 in the saddle. It goes by way of Kanghwa Dolmen Sites, Jangneung Cluster and back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites. It crosses from North Korea into South Korea - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 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 33 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach 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 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.
Back at Mausoleum of King Wang Kon. That is the ride.
Mausoleum of King Wang Kon → Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → Jangneung Cluster is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jangneung Cluster → back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → Mausoleum of King Wang Kon is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.