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 Arad it runs 345 km to Arad; allow about 5 h 28 of riding. It goes by way of Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit, White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme and back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit. It crosses from Israel into Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
100 km on Masada → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
The Dead Sea lies more than four hundred metres below sea level, the lowest point on land, and Masada rises above its western shore as a vast flat-topped rock with sheer cliffs on every side. King Herod built a palace fortress here in the first century BC, with storerooms, cisterns, bathhouses and a three-tiered palace hanging from the northern cliff. After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, a group of Jewish rebels held out on the rock against the Roman army. The Romans built a siege ramp up the western side, and according to the historian Josephus, when the walls were breached, the defenders chose to die rather than be captured.
Read the complete Masada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Masada is where the day begins. Next is Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
To enter the Church of the Nativity, you have to bow. The main door into the basilica was made smaller over the centuries, probably to stop people riding in on horseback, and the low opening is known as the Door of Humility. Inside, the church built by Justinian in the sixth century over an earlier fourth century basilica of Constantine is one of the oldest functioning churches in the world, and beneath its altar a stair leads down to the Grotto of the Nativity, where a silver star marks the place where tradition says Jesus was born. The church and the pilgrimage route through Bethlehem became a World Heritage Site in 2012.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit comes up about 100 km into the recorded legs. Next is White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme.
White walls, rounded balconies, ribbon windows and flat roofs: walking through central Tel Aviv you are surrounded by one of the largest collections of buildings in the International Style anywhere in the world. Several thousand were built in the 1930s and 1940s, many by architects who had trained in Europe, some at the Bauhaus, and who adapted the modernist ideas to the Mediterranean climate with balconies for shade and raised ground floors for air. The White City, as it is called, became a World Heritage Site in 2003. The plan of the city itself was drawn up by the Scottish urbanist Patrick Geddes in the 1920s, with tree lined boulevards and green squares.
Read the complete White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 173 km into the recorded legs you reach White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme. Next is back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit, late in the day. Next is Masada.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Masada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Masada. That is the ride.
Masada → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
White City of Tel-Aviv - the Modern Moveme → back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → Masada is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.