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.
423 km from Jericho to Jericho, about 6 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit, Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud, Tel Beer Sheba and Shivta. It crosses from Palestinian Territories into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
This part of the ride is 46 km of Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Na.
Jericho is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns on earth, and at Tell es-Sultan, on its northern edge, archaeologists have dug down through layers of settlement more than ten thousand years old. Among the finds is a great stone tower, built in the Neolithic, around eleven thousand years ago, long before writing, metal or the wheel, which is often called the oldest such tower in the world. The tell, with its trenches and mud brick walls, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2023.
Read the complete Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan is where the day begins. Next is Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
To enter the Church of the Nativity, you have to bow. The main door into the basilica was made smaller over the centuries, probably to stop people riding in on horseback, and the low opening is known as the Door of Humility. Inside, the church built by Justinian in the sixth century over an earlier fourth century basilica of Constantine is one of the oldest functioning churches in the world, and beneath its altar a stair leads down to the Grotto of the Nativity, where a silver star marks the place where tradition says Jesus was born. The church and the pilgrimage route through Bethlehem became a World Heritage Site in 2012.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Beneath the low hills of the Judean lowlands, the Shephelah, lies a city of caves. Maresha was an important town of the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period, and its inhabitants carved thousands of chambers into the soft chalk beneath their houses: cisterns, olive presses, stables, quarries, burial caves and columbaria, rooms with hundreds of niches, probably used for raising pigeons. Nearby Bet Guvrin, known to the Romans as Eleutheropolis, became a major city in later centuries. The national park and its caves were listed by UNESCO in 2014 as a microcosm of the land of the caves.
Read the complete Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud. Next is Tel Beer Sheba.
Tel Beer Sheba is a mound on the edge of the modern city of Beersheba, in the northern Negev desert of southern Israel, and it holds the remains of an Iron Age town that has been excavated and partially reconstructed. With Megiddo and Hazor, it forms the UNESCO site of the Biblical Tels, recognized for their importance in understanding the cities of the biblical era. The name Beersheba appears many times in the Bible, associated with Abraham and the wells he dug in the desert.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tel Beer Sheba, about halfway. Next is Shivta.
There is no water at Shivta, and yet a town of some size thrived here, in the middle of the Negev desert, for several centuries. Its people collected every drop of rain that fell on the surrounding hills and channelled it into cisterns, and they grew grapes, wheat and olives in the dry valleys around. Shivta began as a Nabataean settlement on the trade routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and it reached its peak in the Byzantine period, when it had three churches, houses, wine presses and streets of stone. It is part of the Incense Route listed by UNESCO, with the desert cities of Avdat, Haluza and Mamshit.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shivta sits at 197 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tel Beer Sheba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tel Beer Sheba comes up about 275 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 330 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud. Next is back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit, late in the day. Next is Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 423 km.
Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → Tel Beer Sheba is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Beer Sheba → Shivta is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shivta → back through Tel Beer Sheba is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tel Beer Sheba → back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.