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 Qiryat Shemona it runs 160 km to Qiryat Shemona; allow about 2 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of Qalaat al-Chakif, Tyre and back through Qalaat al-Chakif. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 22 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
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 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 comes up about 34 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 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Tyre. Next is back through Qalaat al-Chakif.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat al-Chakif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat al-Chakif, late in the day. 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.
Back at Mount Amel Castles. That is the ride.
Mount Amel Castles → Qalaat al-Chakif is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat al-Chakif → Tyre is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tyre → back through Qalaat al-Chakif is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat al-Chakif → Mount Amel Castles is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.