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.
324 km from Acre to Acre, about 5 h 35 of riding. It goes by way of 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. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 61 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
In the spring of 1863, Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í faith, spent twelve days in a garden in Baghdad that Bahá'ís now call Ridván, the Garden of Paradise, and the festival of that name still marks the most holy days in their calendar. The garden outside Acre that carries the same name is a different place, a quiet green island on the Na'amán river, east of the old city, which Bahá'u'lláh loved during his years as a prisoner and exile of the Ottomans in Acre. He called it the New Jerusalem, and visitors who enter its small gate understand why. The river runs around it, mulberry trees give shade, and the air is cool and smells of water.
Read the complete Ridván Gardens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ridván Gardens 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 61 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 162 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 Ridván Gardens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ridván Gardens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ridván Gardens. That is the ride.
Ridván Gardens → Mount Amel Castles is 61 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 → Ridván Gardens is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.