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 200 km round trip from Qiryat Shemona - roughly 3 h 27 in the saddle. On the way it passes Tyre, Junayn Garden, Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester and back through Junayn Garden. It crosses from Lebanon into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
27 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
This part of the ride is 29 km of Junayn Garden → Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester.
It is a region of terraced slopes, olive groves, tobacco patches and stone villages, with the Hula valley falling away to the east and the long wall of Mount Hermon hanging over everything on a clear day. The nearest settlements are Ain Ebel on the Lebanese side and Qiryat Shemona and Metulla on the Israeli side, which tells you most of what you need to know about the place: this is a frontier, and the frontier shapes every road.
Read the complete Mount Amel Castles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Amel Castles is where the day begins. 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.
Tyre comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Junayn Garden.
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.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Junayn Garden. Next is Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester.
Mount Carmel rises straight from the sea at Haifa, and on its northern slope a staircase of nineteen terraces of gardens, lawns and fountains climbs from the German Colony to the ridge, with the golden-domed Shrine of the Báb in the middle of it all. The Báb, a young merchant from Shiraz, proclaimed in 1844 that a new messenger of God would come, and he was executed in Tabriz in 1850. His remains were hidden and finally brought to Haifa and placed in a tomb on the slope, with the first building completed in 1909 and the present octagon with its dome of gold tiles finished in 1953. The terraces were completed in 2001. The gardens and the shrine, together with the sites at Bahji near Akko, make up the Baha'i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee, listed by UNESCO in 2008.
Read the complete Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Junayn Garden sits at 133 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Tyre comes up about 172 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mount Amel Castles.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mount Amel Castles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Amel Castles closes the day.
Mount Amel Castles → Tyre is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tyre → Junayn Garden is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Junayn Garden → Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Wester → back through Junayn Garden is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Junayn Garden → back through Tyre is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tyre → Mount Amel Castles is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.