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.
349 km from Yongsan-dong to Yongsan-dong, about 6 h 01 of riding. It goes by way of Hwaseong Fortress, Seosan Getbol, Kanghwa Dolmen Sites and Kaesong Walls. It crosses from South Korea into North Korea - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
You come up out of the Seolleung subway station into the glass towers of Gangnam, and a few minutes later you are standing in a pine grove with royal tombs. The Seolleung cluster holds the burial mounds of King Seongjong, who died in the fifteenth century, and his queen, together with the tomb of King Jungjong, a later ruler, at a short distance. The park, surrounded by office blocks and busy roads, has the stillness of a place that has been left alone for five hundred years, and it is one of the most surprising pieces of silence in the city.
Read the complete Seolleung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seolleung Cluster is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 36 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 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Seosan Getbol. 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, about halfway. Next is Kaesong Walls.
The walls of Kaesong tell you what a medieval capital thought about safety. Goryeo's rulers lived behind several rings, an inner enclosure around the palace, a middle wall and an outer wall of earth and stone running around the hills for kilometres. The outer wall was begun in the early eleventh century, partly in response to Khitan invasions from the north, and was rebuilt and extended later. Parts are still visible along the ridge lines, with gates at key points, and they are now part of the World Heritage listing of historic monuments and sites in Kaesong, inscribed in 2013.
Read the complete Kaesong Walls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kaesong Walls sits at 175 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 208 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 252 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Seosan Getbol. Next is back through Hwaseong Fortress.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hwaseong Fortress write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hwaseong Fortress, late in the day. Next is Seolleung Cluster.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seolleung Cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 349 km.
Seolleung Cluster → Hwaseong Fortress is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hwaseong Fortress → Seosan Getbol is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seosan Getbol → Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → Kaesong Walls is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kaesong Walls → back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kanghwa Dolmen Sites → back through Seosan Getbol is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seosan Getbol → back through Hwaseong Fortress is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hwaseong Fortress → Seolleung Cluster is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.