CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 169 km round trip from Dendermonde - roughly 3 h 17 in the saddle. It goes by way of Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent, Stadhuis met Belfort, Historic Centre of Brugge and back through Stadhuis met Belfort. The line favours views over speed.
Dendermonde sits where the Dender gives up and pours itself into the Scheldt, and the old town hall on the Grote Markt is the thing you aim for when you roll in. Its belfry is one of the Flemish and Walloon towers grouped together by UNESCO as the Belfries of Belgium and France, and the reason those towers matter is simple: in the medieval Low Countries a belfry was the civic answer to the church spire. It held the town charters, the bell that called the citizens, and the watchman who looked out for fire and for armies. Dendermonde needed the watchman more than most, because a town at a river junction is a town everybody wants, and it was besieged, burned and rebuilt more than once, most brutally in 1914 when German troops set much of it alight.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stadhuis met Belfort is where the day begins. Next is Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.
The Great Béguinage of Sint-Amandsberg looks like a small walled town of its own, tucked into a residential suburb just east of the centre of Ghent. When the city expanded in the 1870s and the old béguinage of St Elisabeth was in the way, the beguines, lay religious women who lived in community without taking permanent vows, moved here to a new complex of neo-Gothic houses, convents and a church, all laid out around streets, squares and gardens behind a wall and gate. The move was funded by the Duke of Arenberg, and the whole place was finished in just a few years. It is one of the thirteen Flemish Béguinages on the UNESCO list since 1998, and although the beguines are gone, the houses are still lived in, and the atmosphere is calm and quiet.
Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent comes up 31 km in. Next is Stadhuis met Belfort.
Eeklo is the capital of the Meetjesland, the flat, green region of East Flanders between Ghent and Bruges, close to the Dutch border, and its town hall with a belfry, the Stadhuis met Belfort, stands on the market square as the symbol of the town. It is one of the belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a group of civic towers that embodied the freedom and power of the medieval towns of Flanders. Eeklo's belfry is modest compared with those of Bruges and Ghent, but it has its own charm, rising above a town that most visitors pass through without stopping.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
61 km in you reach Stadhuis met Belfort. Next is Historic Centre of Brugge.
Bruges was once one of the richest cities in northern Europe, a trading hub where merchants from Italy, Germany, England and Spain bought and sold wool, cloth, spices and luxury goods. Its wealth came from its access to the sea through an inlet called the Zwin, and when that silted up in the fifteenth century, trade moved to Antwerp and Bruges slowly fell asleep. For centuries it was a quiet, poor town, and that is why its medieval centre survived almost intact. In the nineteenth century, writers and painters rediscovered it, and Georges Rodenbach's novel Bruges-la-Morte made it famous as a melancholy city of canals and bells. The historic centre was listed by UNESCO in 2000.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Brugge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Brugge, about halfway. Next is back through Stadhuis met Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stadhuis met Belfort sits at 122 km, about halfway. Next is back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent comes up 153 km in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stadhuis met Belfort closes the day.
Stadhuis met Belfort → Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent → Stadhuis met Belfort is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stadhuis met Belfort → Historic Centre of Brugge is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Brugge → back through Stadhuis met Belfort is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stadhuis met Belfort → back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Béguinage de Sint-Amandsberg / Gent → Stadhuis met Belfort is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.