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.
A 325 km round trip from Bent Jbaïl - roughly 5 h 36 in the saddle. The stops in between: Persian Quarter, Sebastia and back through Persian Quarter. 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.
Tibnin is a castle on a hill in south Lebanon, and the story it tells is one of rival crowns trading the same piece of ground. The Crusaders built it in the early twelfth century, around 1105, under Hugh of St Omer, and called it Toron. It sat between the coast at Tyre and the road to Damascus, and from its walls a garrison could see raiders coming a long way off. Saladin took it in 1187, and the fortress changed hands and shape for centuries afterwards, ending up a half-ruined hill crowned with pale stone, with a village of the same name spread around it.
Read the complete Qalaat Tibnin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Tibnin is where the day begins. Next is Persian Quarter.
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 comes up about 78 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 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 through Persian Quarter, late in the day. Next is Qalaat Tibnin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Tibnin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Qalaat Tibnin. That is the ride.
Qalaat Tibnin → Persian Quarter is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Persian Quarter → Sebastia is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sebastia → back through Persian Quarter is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Persian Quarter → Qalaat Tibnin is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.