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 180 km round trip from Nahariyya - roughly 3 h 06 in the saddle. On the way it passes Qalaat Chama’, Tyre, Qalaat Deir Kifa and Qalaat al-Chakif. 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.
On the coastal plain of western Galilee, between Nahariya and Akko, a small garden known as Junayn is one of the Bahá'í holy places in Israel. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, spent his final years in exile in this region in the late nineteenth century, after being banished by the Ottoman authorities from Persia and then from Baghdad, Istanbul and Edirne. Once his confinement in the prison-city of Akko was relaxed, he would visit gardens around the town, and this was one of them. The Bahá'í holy places in Haifa and western Galilee, including the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí and the terraced gardens on Mount Carmel, were listed by UNESCO in 2008. The gardens are tended with remarkable precision by Bahá'í volunteers from around the world, and the atmosphere is serene.
Read the complete Junayn Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Junayn Garden 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 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tyre.
Tyre was already ancient when Alexander the Great arrived in 332 before Christ. Then it was an island city just off the coast of what is now southern Lebanon, famously rich and famously stubborn, and when its citizens refused to open their gates, Alexander built a causeway out to the island and besieged it for months. Sand piled up against that causeway over the centuries, and the island became the peninsula you see today, with the modern city of Tyre spreading across it and the old harbour still busy with fishing boats.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 46 km into the recorded legs you reach Tyre. 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, about halfway. 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 sits at 90 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 110 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tyre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 136 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tyre. 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’, late in the day. Next is Junayn Garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Junayn Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 180 km.
Junayn Garden → Qalaat Chama’ is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Chama’ → Tyre is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tyre → Qalaat Deir Kifa is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Deir Kifa → Qalaat al-Chakif is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Qalaat Deir Kifa is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa → back through Tyre is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tyre → back through Qalaat Chama’ is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Chama’ → Junayn Garden is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.