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.
317 km from Acre to Acre, about 5 h 28 of riding. It goes by way of Qalaat Deir Kifa, Anjar and back through Qalaat Deir Kifa. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited ports in the world, and for the followers of the Bahá'í faith it has another meaning. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder, was exiled to the Ottoman prison city of Acre in 1868 and spent the rest of his life there, and in the countryside a few kilometres north of the walls he lived in a mansion called Bahjí. He died there in 1892, and the room in the house next door became a shrine. The shrine is the holiest place in the Bahá'í world, a quiet building of white stone with a glass-roofed courtyard, surrounded by gardens with lawns, hedges and palms. It was listed by UNESCO in 2008, with the Bahá'í sites in Haifa.
Read the complete Bahjí write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahjí is where the day begins. Next is Qalaat Deir Kifa.
Southern Lebanon has a castle on almost every second hilltop, and Qalaat Deir Kifa is one of the less-known ones, a ruined fortification above the village of Deir Kifa in the rolling hills of Jabal Amel, between the Litani river and the coast at Tyre. Like many sites in this landscape, it has been built on, fought over and reused across several eras, and today what remains is stone walls, scattered blocks and a view across a countryside of olive groves, tobacco terraces and stony ridges.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Deir Kifa comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Anjar.
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.
about 158 km into the recorded legs you reach Anjar. Next is back through Qalaat Deir Kifa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa, late in the day. Next is Bahjí.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahjí write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bahjí. That is the ride.
Bahjí → Qalaat Deir Kifa is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Deir Kifa → Anjar is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → back through Qalaat Deir Kifa is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa → Bahjí is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.