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.
170 km from Acre to Acre, about 2 h 56 of riding. It goes by way of Qalaat Chama’, Qalaat Tibnin, Qalaat al-Chakif and back through Qalaat Tibnin. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules.
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 Chama’.
Before anything else: this is one of the most sensitive places on any of these routes. Qalaat Chama, or Shamaa castle, stands on a hilltop in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres north of the border with Israel and inland from Naqoura, in an area that has seen repeated conflict, including heavy fighting in recent years, and that many governments advise against visiting under any circumstances. Damage to historic sites in the area has been reported, and conditions may have changed. Do not go without checking current official travel advice, and if in doubt, do not go at all.
Read the complete Qalaat Chama’ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Chama’ comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Qalaat Tibnin.
Tibnin is a castle on a hill in south Lebanon, and the story it tells is one of rival crowns trading the same piece of ground. The Crusaders built it in the early twelfth century, around 1105, under Hugh of St Omer, and called it Toron. It sat between the coast at Tyre and the road to Damascus, and from its walls a garrison could see raiders coming a long way off. Saladin took it in 1187, and the fortress changed hands and shape for centuries afterwards, ending up a half-ruined hill crowned with pale stone, with a village of the same name spread around it.
Read the complete Qalaat Tibnin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Qalaat Tibnin. 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.
Qalaat al-Chakif, about halfway. Next is back through Qalaat Tibnin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Tibnin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Tibnin sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Qalaat Chama’.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Chama’ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Chama’ comes up about 138 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Bahjí closes the day.
Bahjí → Qalaat Chama’ is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Chama’ → Qalaat Tibnin is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Tibnin → Qalaat al-Chakif is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Qalaat Tibnin is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Tibnin → back through Qalaat Chama’ is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Chama’ → Bahjí is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.