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: 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.
From Waterloo it runs 388 km to Waterloo; allow about 5 h 18 of riding. The stops in between: Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort, Béguinage de Diest, Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto and The Great Spa Towns of Europe. Long stretches are under trees.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 65 km this is Belgian Ardennes Scenic Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is where the day begins. Next is Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Leuven is a university town through and through. Its university, founded in 1425, is the oldest in the Low Countries, and its students fill the streets, cafés and squares, giving the city a youthful energy. At its heart is the Grote Markt, dominated by two buildings: the Town Hall, a Gothic masterpiece covered in hundreds of statues, and opposite it, the Church of St Peter, a great Gothic church whose tower was never finished but which is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Béguinage de Diest.
Diest has one of the largest béguinages in Flanders, a walled town within the town, with its own streets, gates, church and some ninety houses. The béguines were laywomen who lived a religious life without taking permanent vows, earning their own living and sharing a community, and their béguinages flourished in the Low Countries from the thirteenth century onward. The Flemish béguinages are listed together by UNESCO. In Diest, the béguinage has been restored with care, and its cobbled streets, whitewashed houses and quiet gardens feel worlds away from the traffic outside.
Read the complete Béguinage de Diest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Béguinage de Diest. Next is Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto.
Tongeren likes to remind you that it is the oldest town in Belgium, and it has a strong claim. The Romans founded a settlement here, Atuatuca Tungrorum, on the road between Cologne and Bavay, and the remains of its walls can still be seen around the town. Before that, the area was home to the Eburones, a Celtic tribe whose chieftain Ambiorix famously ambushed and destroyed a Roman legion in 54 BC. His statue, a heroic nineteenth-century figure with a winged helmet and a magnificent moustache, stands in the main square, the Grote Markt.
Read the complete Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto, about halfway. Next is The Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Spa is the little town in the Belgian Ardennes that gave its name to every spa in the world, and the story goes back a long way. The mineral springs here were known to the Romans, and Pliny is often cited as mentioning them, and from the sixteenth century they drew the nobility of Europe. In 1717 Peter the Great of Russia came to take the waters, and the Pouhon Pierre-le-Grand, a handsome pavilion over the main spring, is named after him. The town built a grand casino, a thermal baths building and a promenade, and a century later it became known as the Café of Europe, a place where kings, writers and intriguers rubbed shoulders.
Read the complete The Great Spa Towns of Europe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Great Spa Towns of Europe sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto comes up about 258 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Béguinage de Diest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Diest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 314 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Béguinage de Diest. Next is back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort, late in the day. Next is Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 388 km.
Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict → Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → Béguinage de Diest is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Diest → Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto → The Great Spa Towns of Europe is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Great Spa Towns of Europe → back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Onze-Lieve-Lievevrouwebasiliek met Stadsto → back through Béguinage de Diest is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Béguinage de Diest → back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sint-Pieterskerk / Belfort → Sonian Forest - Réserve forestière du Tict is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.