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.
From Haifa it runs 376 km to Haifa; allow about 6 h 29 of riding. The stops in between: Tyre, Anjar and back through Tyre. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Haifa climbs the northern slope of Mount Carmel in tiers, and halfway up, a golden dome catches the light above a staircase of gardens that tumbles all the way down to the old German Colony and the port. This is the Bahá'í World Centre, and the dome crowns the Shrine of the Báb, the founder figure of the Bahá'í faith, whose remains were brought here from Persia and interred on the mountainside. The nineteen terraces around it, with clipped lawns, gravel paths, cypresses and fountains, are among the most meticulously kept gardens anywhere, and together with the shrine of Bahá'u'lláh near Acre across the bay they form a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Persian connection runs through everything here, from the faith's origins in nineteenth-century Iran to the formal geometry of the planting.
Read the complete Persian Quarter write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Persian Quarter 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 73 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 189 km into the recorded legs you reach Anjar. 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, late in the day. Next is Persian Quarter.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Persian Quarter write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Persian Quarter. That is the ride.
Persian Quarter → Tyre is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tyre → Anjar is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → back through Tyre is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tyre → Persian Quarter is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.