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 Idhnā it runs 225 km to Idhnā; allow about 3 h 53 of riding. The stops in between: Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town, Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult, Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan and back through Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult. It crosses from Israel into Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 29 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
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.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is where the day begins. Next is Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town.
Hebron, al-Khalil in Arabic, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Middle East, set in the hills of the southern West Bank. Its heart is the old town, a warren of stone alleys, covered souqs and Mamluk-era houses, grouped around the great mosque built over the Cave of the Patriarchs, where tradition places the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives. The site is holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians, and its name in Arabic, al-Khalil, means the friend, a reference to Abraham as the friend of God.
Read the complete Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult.
Battir is the quiet village at the heart of this cultural landscape, in the hills southwest of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where terraces of dry stone climb the slopes in layer after layer. They are planted with olives, vines, and the vegetables that Battir is famous for, especially a small, sweet kind of aubergine. UNESCO inscribed the area in 2014 as the Land of Olives and Vines, a cultural landscape of southern Jerusalem, because the terraces, the irrigation channels and the old watch-towers show an agricultural system that has worked for many centuries.
Read the complete Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult. Next is Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan.
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, about halfway. Next is back through Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult sits at 135 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town comes up about 196 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud closes the day.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town → Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult → Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan → back through Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cult → back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town → Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.