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 Aanjar it runs 413 km to Aanjar; allow about 5 h 34 of riding. On the way it passes Byblos, Qalaat al-Chakif and back through Byblos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
In the Bekaa valley of Lebanon, close to the Syrian border, an Umayyad city lies laid out in a perfect grid, as if drawn with a ruler. Anjar was built in the early eighth century, probably under the caliph al-Walid I, as a palace town and commercial centre on the trade routes between Damascus and the coast. Its plan echoes Roman cities, with two main streets crossing at a four-sided monument, the tetrapylon, lined with the bases of hundreds of shops. Arches of the great palace, built of alternating courses of stone and brick, rise against the backdrop of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and in the late afternoon the stone glows warm gold. The city flourished only briefly before being abandoned, which is why it is so clearly preserved. UNESCO listed it in 1984.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Anjar is where the day begins. Next is Byblos.
Byblos, known to the Lebanese as Jbeil, is one of the contenders for the title of oldest continuously inhabited town on the planet. People have lived on this little headland above the Mediterranean for around seven thousand years, and the Phoenician city here was a great trading port, sending cedar wood from the mountains to Egypt and taking papyrus in return. The Greeks named the city after the papyrus, byblos, and from that word comes the word Bible. The alphabet developed by the Phoenicians, ancestor of Greek and Latin letters, is famously inscribed on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram, found here and now in Beirut's national museum.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byblos comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. Next is Qalaat al-Chakif.
Perched on a cliff edge some three hundred metres above the gorge of the Litani river in southern Lebanon, Beaufort Castle, known in Arabic as Qalaat al-Chakif, has watched over the borderlands of the Levant for nearly a thousand years. The Crusaders took and fortified it in the twelfth century, and it was finally surrendered to Saladin in 1190 after a long siege. Later it was held by the Mamluks, rebuilt and repaired by local rulers, and in the twentieth century it became a fiercely contested military position, occupied by Palestinian fighters and then by the Israeli army from 1982 until its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Its stones have been battered by everything from siege engines to modern artillery.
Read the complete Qalaat al-Chakif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 206 km into the recorded legs you reach Qalaat al-Chakif. Next is back through Byblos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Byblos, late in the day. Next is Anjar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Anjar. That is the ride.
Anjar → Byblos is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Byblos → Qalaat al-Chakif is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Byblos is 118 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Byblos → Anjar is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.