Why this ride
From Waterloo it runs 109 km to Waterloo; allow about 1 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Hôtel van Eetvelde, Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi and back through Hôtel van Eetvelde. Long stretches are under trees.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict and Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi starting at Waterloo
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 109 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 52
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict
The beeches in the Sonian Forest grow so tall and straight that people call it the cathedral forest, and once you stand under them on a misty autumn morning the name stops sounding like tourist talk. This great woodland on the southeastern edge of Brussels covers thousands of hectares, and most of the famous columns of grey trunks were planted in the late eighteenth century, when the Austrian Habsburgs ruled these lands and their foresters reshaped the old wood. A few patches, including the Tict reserve near La Hulpe and Waterloo, are left to grow wild with no felling at all, and they form part of the UNESCO listing for the ancient and primeval beech forests of Europe, a chain of reserves stretching across the continent.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is where the day begins. Next is Hôtel van Eetvelde.
2. Hôtel van Eetvelde
Victor Horta built this house between 1895 and 1898 for Edmond van Eetvelde, a senior official who ran the affairs of King Leopold II's Congo Free State from Brussels, and it is impossible now to look at it without holding both of those facts at once: one of the most daring houses of the Art Nouveau age, paid for in a world shaped by the brutal exploitation of the Congo. Hôtel van Eetvelde stands on the Avenue Palmerston near the Square Ambiorix, in the European quarter, and with three other Horta houses it was inscribed in 2000 as the Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta.
Read the complete Hôtel van Eetvelde write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hôtel van Eetvelde comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi.
3. Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi
The Grote Markt of Mechelen is one of the grandest squares in Belgium, and on its eastern side stands the old cloth hall with its belfry, a building with a curious history. The hall was built in the fourteenth century, when Mechelen was a rich cloth-making town, and the belfry was planned to be a tall tower, but it was never finished. Its stump was eventually given a pointed roof, and later a sixteenth-century extension in the Renaissance style was begun to house the Great Council of the Netherlands, but that too remained unfinished. The belfry is part of the UNESCO listing of the belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi. Next is back through Hôtel van Eetvelde.
4. back through Hôtel van Eetvelde
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hôtel van Eetvelde write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Hôtel van Eetvelde, late in the day. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
5. Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict to Hôtel van Eetvelde
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Hôtel van Eetvelde is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hôtel van Eetvelde to Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi
Hôtel van Eetvelde → Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi to back through Hôtel van Eetvelde
Ancienne Halle avec Beffroi → back through Hôtel van Eetvelde is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hôtel van Eetvelde to Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict
back through Hôtel van Eetvelde → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.