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 Bcharré it runs 399 km to Bcharré; allow about 5 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Anjar, Qalaat al-Chakif and back through Anjar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Cliffs fall hundreds of metres into the Qadisha valley in northern Lebanon, and halfway down, tucked into caves and ledges, are monasteries and hermitages where Maronite Christians have prayed and hidden for over a thousand years. The name means holy, and the valley was a refuge for monks and believers fleeing persecution. The monastery of Qannoubine, seat of the Maronite patriarchs for centuries, clings to the rock, and the monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya kept one of the first printing presses in the Middle East, used to print psalms in Syriac. UNESCO lists the valley together with the forest of the Cedars of God above it.
Read the complete Ouadi Qadisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ouadi Qadisha is where the day begins. Next is Anjar.
In the Bekaa valley of Lebanon, close to the Syrian border, an Umayyad city lies laid out in a perfect grid, as if drawn with a ruler. Anjar was built in the early eighth century, probably under the caliph al-Walid I, as a palace town and commercial centre on the trade routes between Damascus and the coast. Its plan echoes Roman cities, with two main streets crossing at a four-sided monument, the tetrapylon, lined with the bases of hundreds of shops. Arches of the great palace, built of alternating courses of stone and brick, rise against the backdrop of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and in the late afternoon the stone glows warm gold. The city flourished only briefly before being abandoned, which is why it is so clearly preserved. UNESCO listed it in 1984.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Anjar comes up about 117 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 200 km into the recorded legs you reach Qalaat al-Chakif. Next is back through Anjar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Anjar, late in the day. Next is Ouadi Qadisha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ouadi Qadisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ouadi Qadisha. That is the ride.
Ouadi Qadisha → Anjar is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → Qalaat al-Chakif is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Anjar is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Anjar → Ouadi Qadisha is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.