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 Acre it runs 326 km to Acre; allow about 5 h 37 of riding. On the way it passes Mount Amel Castles, Anjar and back through Mount Amel Castles. 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.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 62 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Acre's citadel has been a prison for much of its life, and the word on the label points to it. The great vaulted fortress in the north-west corner of the old city was built by the Ottomans on the foundations of the Hospitaller halls, and in the nineteenth century it became a feared jail for political prisoners. Bahá'u'lláh was held here in the late 1860s with his family and followers, in crowded and miserable conditions, before being moved to a house in the town. Later, under the British Mandate, the same building held Jewish underground fighters, and a dramatic break-out in 1947 became one of the best-known episodes of that period. Part of the complex is now a museum, and the rooms are open to the public on set hours.
Read the complete Prison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Prison is where the day begins. Next is Mount Amel Castles.
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 comes up about 62 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 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Anjar. Next is back through 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 through Mount Amel Castles, late in the day. Next is Prison.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Prison write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Prison. That is the ride.
Prison → Mount Amel Castles is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mount Amel Castles → Anjar is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → back through Mount Amel Castles is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mount Amel Castles → Prison is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.