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.
527 km from Culfa to Culfa, about 9 h 21 of riding. On the way it passes The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus, Khoy and back through The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The chapel of Dzordzor sits in a narrow valley of north-western Iran, a small Armenian church in country where the hills fold into one another and the villages are few. The name in Persian is Darresham, and the site belongs to the same UNESCO group as the great monasteries of Saint Thaddeus and Saint Stepanos. It is the smallest of the three, but it carries the same quality of stubborn survival: a stone building, rebuilt and repaired by the community that depended on it, still standing in a landscape where most of the evidence of earlier lives has been scraped away.
Read the complete Darresham Chapel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Darresham Chapel is where the day begins. Next is The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus.
On a bare hillside near the border between Iran and Turkey, close to the foot of Mount Ararat, stands a black-and-white church that has survived earthquakes, wars and neglect for most of a thousand years. The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus, known in Iran as Qara Kelisa, the Black Church, is one of the oldest and most revered Armenian churches in the world. It is built of alternating bands of black and white stone, in a way that gives it a striking, almost chequered appearance, and it stands in a high, windy valley of the north-west.
Read the complete The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus comes up about 108 km into the recorded legs. Next is Khoy.
Khoy is the big, practical city of Iran's far north-west, a place of about a hundred and seventy-five thousand people on a wide fertile plain between the Turkish border and Lake Urmia. It is not a showpiece. It is a working town of bazaars, apricot and grape growers, trucking depots and solid apartment blocks, and that is exactly what makes it useful. This is where you buy supplies, change money, find a proper meal and get fuel before the road climbs toward the mountains.
Read the complete Khoy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 256 km into the recorded legs you reach Khoy. Next is back through The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus, late in the day. Next is Darresham Chapel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Darresham Chapel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Darresham Chapel. That is the ride.
Darresham Chapel → The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus → Khoy is 148 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Khoy → back through The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus is 163 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Monastery of Saint Thaddeus → Darresham Chapel is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.