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.
From Alveringem it runs 170 km to Alveringem; allow about 2 h 56 of riding. On the way it passes Beffroi de Bergues, Beffroi de Gravelines, Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais and back through Beffroi de Gravelines. It crosses from Belgium into France - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Lo is one of the smallest towns in Belgium, a cluster of brick houses around a market square in the flat polders of the Westhoek, a few kilometres from the French border. Its former town hall, built in the sixteenth century in Renaissance style, has a small belfry tower, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, alongside much grander towers in Bruges, Ghent and Lille. It is a reminder that even tiny towns had civic pride and privileges worth announcing to the world.
Read the complete Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort is where the day begins. Next is Beffroi de Bergues.
Bergues found a new kind of fame in 2008, when the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, filmed here, became one of the most successful French films of all time, and suddenly the whole country wanted to see the town where a postman from the south is exiled to the cold north and ends up falling in love with it. The film's best-known scenes include the belfry, from which the hero rings the carillon, and the town still welcomes visitors who come in search of the locations. But Bergues was a proud place long before cinema arrived. It is a small fortified town in French Flanders, surrounded by ramparts and canals, with fortifications improved by Vauban in the seventeenth century.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de Bergues comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Gravelines.
Gravelines sits right where the river Aa meets the Channel, between Calais and Dunkirk, and it still wears its walls. The town is wrapped in Vauban-era fortifications, a star of brick ramparts, bastions and water-filled moats that you can walk or ride around, and in the middle of it rises the belfry, one of the towers listed by UNESCO among the belfries of northern France and Belgium. It is a solid, sober tower rather than a showpiece, built to watch, warn and ring the hours for a frontier town that changed hands more than once.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Gravelines. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais.
Most riders know Calais as the place where the ferry or the tunnel train spits them out onto French tarmac, and they head south without a backward glance. Spare it an hour. The town hall is a surprise, a grand building in Flemish Renaissance style finished in the early twentieth century, and its belfry, one of the tallest in the region, rises well above the rooftops as a landmark you can see from the port. It forms part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France, alongside towers that are centuries older.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Gravelines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Gravelines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Gravelines sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de Bergues.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de Bergues comes up about 140 km into the recorded legs. Next is Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort closes the day.
Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort → Beffroi de Bergues is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Bergues → Beffroi de Gravelines is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de Gravelines → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Calais → back through Beffroi de Gravelines is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Gravelines → back through Beffroi de Bergues is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de Bergues → Voormalig Stadhuis met Belfort is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.