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.
325 km from Nabatîyé et Tahta to Nabatîyé et Tahta, about 5 h 36 of riding. It goes by way of Bahjí, Sebastia and back through Bahjí. It crosses Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Southern Lebanon has a castle on almost every second hilltop, and Qalaat Deir Kifa is one of the less-known ones, a ruined fortification above the village of Deir Kifa in the rolling hills of Jabal Amel, between the Litani river and the coast at Tyre. Like many sites in this landscape, it has been built on, fought over and reused across several eras, and today what remains is stone walls, scattered blocks and a view across a countryside of olive groves, tobacco terraces and stony ridges.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Deir Kifa 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 Deir Kifa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Qalaat Deir Kifa. That is the ride.
Qalaat Deir Kifa → 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 Deir Kifa is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.