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.
A 393 km round trip from Umm el Faḥm - roughly 6 h 47 in the saddle. On the way it passes Tel Hazor, Anjar and back through Tel Hazor. 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. The line favours views over speed.
Megiddo is the hill that gave the world the word Armageddon, which comes from Har Megiddo, the mount of Megiddo, and it sits where the Jezreel valley opens to the coast road, a little north of the Wadi Ara pass. The tell is a long mound made of some twenty layers of ruined cities piled on top of each other, and from its top the whole green plain stretches north to the hills of Nazareth. Today it is inscribed on the World Heritage list together with two other biblical mounds.
Read the complete Biblical Tels - Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Biblical Tels - Megiddo is where the day begins. Next is Tel Hazor.
If you stand on the top of Tel Hazor on a clear day, the view is of the Hula valley to the north and the hills of Upper Galilee to the west, with the snow-capped hump of Mount Hermon, in winter, sitting at the far end. The tel itself is a vast, flat-topped mound, the largest ancient site in Israel's north, rising out of the fields near Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar. It is what archaeologists call a tel, a hill made of the layers of cities built one on top of another over thousands of years.
Read the complete Tel Hazor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tel Hazor comes up about 80 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 197 km into the recorded legs you reach Anjar. Next is back through Tel Hazor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Hazor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tel Hazor, late in the day. Next is Biblical Tels - Megiddo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Biblical Tels - Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Biblical Tels - Megiddo. That is the ride.
Biblical Tels - Megiddo → Tel Hazor is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tel Hazor → Anjar is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → back through Tel Hazor is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tel Hazor → Biblical Tels - Megiddo is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.