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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Az Zuwāydah it runs 355 km to Az Zuwāydah; allow about 5 h 44 of riding. The stops in between: Haluza, Shivta, Mamshit and back through Shivta. It crosses from Palestinian Territories into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Saint Hilarion was born around 291 in a village near Gaza and grew up to be the founder of monasticism in Palestine. He studied in Alexandria, was inspired by the desert hermit Anthony, and returned home to live a life of such strict simplicity that disciples followed him and settled around him. The monastery that grew up here, at the site known today as Tell Umm Amer, became one of the largest in the Middle East, with churches, a bathhouse, hostels and workshops, and it functioned for several centuries until the seventh century. Hilarion himself eventually left, wandered through Egypt, Sicily and Dalmatia and died in Cyprus around 371, but the monastery kept his name.
Read the complete Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer is where the day begins. Next is Haluza.
Halutza is a ghost of a city in the sand. Founded by the Nabataeans as a waystation on the incense route from Arabia to the Mediterranean, it grew in the Roman and Byzantine periods into the most important city of the Negev, known in Greek as Elusa, with a theatre, churches and a famous school of rhetoric. Then it faded, the sand moved in, and today only fragments of walls, a small theatre and the remains of churches poke out of the dunes south-west of Beersheba. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Incense Route and desert cities of the Negev, along with Avdat, Mamshit and Shivta.
Read the complete Haluza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Haluza comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Shivta.
There is no water at Shivta, and yet a town of some size thrived here, in the middle of the Negev desert, for several centuries. Its people collected every drop of rain that fell on the surrounding hills and channelled it into cisterns, and they grew grapes, wheat and olives in the dry valleys around. Shivta began as a Nabataean settlement on the trade routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and it reached its peak in the Byzantine period, when it had three churches, houses, wine presses and streets of stone. It is part of the Incense Route listed by UNESCO, with the desert cities of Avdat, Haluza and Mamshit.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Shivta. Next is Mamshit.
Mamshit sits on a low spur above a dry riverbed in the northern Negev, a few kilometres east of Dimona, and from a distance it looks like nothing more than a heap of pale stones. Up close it becomes a town: streets, courtyards, staircases, arches, two Byzantine churches with mosaic floors and a set of large houses built by people who knew how to live comfortably in a hard place. This was Mampsis, a Nabataean settlement on the caravan routes that carried incense and spices from Arabia across the desert to the Mediterranean ports, and it shares a World Heritage inscription with Avdat, Haluza and Shivta as one of the desert cities of the Incense Route.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mamshit, about halfway. Next is back through Shivta.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shivta sits at 209 km, about halfway. Next is back through Haluza.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Haluza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Haluza comes up about 294 km into the recorded legs. Next is Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer closes the day.
Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer → Haluza is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Haluza → Shivta is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shivta → Mamshit is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mamshit → back through Shivta is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shivta → back through Haluza is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Haluza → Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.