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 Qiryat Shemona it runs 326 km to Qiryat Shemona; allow about 5 h 37 of riding. The stops in between: Bahjí, Sebastia and back through Bahjí. It crosses Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Before anything else, the honest part: this place lies in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres from the border with Israel, in an area that has seen repeated war, most recently in 2024, and that remains militarised and unpredictable. The listed neighbours on the route sheet, from Kiryat Shmona to Tyre, sit on opposite sides of a frontier that is closed to ordinary travel. Check your government's travel advice and local conditions very carefully before even thinking about a visit, and do not try to approach from the Israeli side.
Read the complete Qalaat Chakra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Chakra is where the day begins. Next is Bahjí.
Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited ports in the world, and for the followers of the Bahá'í faith it has another meaning. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder, was exiled to the Ottoman prison city of Acre in 1868 and spent the rest of his life there, and in the countryside a few kilometres north of the walls he lived in a mansion called Bahjí. He died there in 1892, and the room in the house next door became a shrine. The shrine is the holiest place in the Bahá'í world, a quiet building of white stone with a glass-roofed courtyard, surrounded by gardens with lawns, hedges and palms. It was listed by UNESCO in 2008, with the Bahá'í sites in Haifa.
Read the complete Bahjí write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahjí comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sebastia.
Sebastia, Sabastiya in Arabic, is a Palestinian village on a hill north-west of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, surrounded by olive groves and terraced hillsides. It stands on the site of Samaria, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, later rebuilt by Herod the Great, who named it Sebaste in honour of the Emperor Augustus. The ruins on the hilltop above the village span a thousand years of history.
Read the complete Sebastia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Sebastia. Next is back through Bahjí.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahjí write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bahjí, late in the day. Next is Qalaat Chakra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Chakra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Qalaat Chakra. That is the ride.
Qalaat Chakra → Bahjí is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahjí → Sebastia is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sebastia → back through Bahjí is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Bahjí → Qalaat Chakra is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.