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.
314 km from Sīlat az̧ Z̧ahr to Sīlat az̧ Z̧ahr, about 5 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Tel Megiddo, North Slope of Mount Carmel, Biblical Tels - Megiddo and Persian Quarter. It crosses from Palestinian Territories into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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.
Sebastia is where the day begins. Next is Tel Megiddo.
From the top of Tel Megiddo, the whole of the Jezreel Valley spreads out below you, a green and gold checkerboard of fields stretching towards Mount Tabor and the hills of Galilee. You can see at once why so many armies fought here. The mound guarded the narrow pass where the ancient coastal road, the Via Maris, crossed from the Mediterranean plain into the valley, and anyone who held it controlled one of the great trade and military routes of the ancient world.
Read the complete Tel Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tel Megiddo comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is North Slope of Mount Carmel.
Haifa is the one big Israeli city where you really do ride up a mountain to get home. The north slope of Mount Carmel drops almost straight into the Mediterranean, and the city is stacked on it in layers: port and railway at the bottom, then the German Colony with its tidy Templer houses, then the long terraces of the Bahá'í Gardens, and finally the ridge, where the road along the top gives you the whole bay as far as Acre on a clear afternoon.
Read the complete North Slope of Mount Carmel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 86 km into the recorded legs you reach North Slope of Mount Carmel. Next is Biblical Tels - Megiddo.
Megiddo is the hill that gave the world the word Armageddon, which comes from Har Megiddo, the mount of Megiddo, and it sits where the Jezreel valley opens to the coast road, a little north of the Wadi Ara pass. The tell is a long mound made of some twenty layers of ruined cities piled on top of each other, and from its top the whole green plain stretches north to the hills of Nazareth. Today it is inscribed on the World Heritage list together with two other biblical mounds.
Read the complete Biblical Tels - Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Biblical Tels - Megiddo, about halfway. 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 sits at 171 km, about halfway. Next is back through Biblical Tels - Megiddo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Biblical Tels - Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Biblical Tels - Megiddo comes up about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through North Slope of Mount Carmel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete North Slope of Mount Carmel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 228 km into the recorded legs you reach back through North Slope of Mount Carmel. Next is back through Tel Megiddo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tel Megiddo, late in the day. Next is Sebastia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sebastia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 314 km.
Sebastia → Tel Megiddo is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Megiddo → North Slope of Mount Carmel is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
North Slope of Mount Carmel → Biblical Tels - Megiddo is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Biblical Tels - Megiddo → Persian Quarter is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Persian Quarter → back through Biblical Tels - Megiddo is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Biblical Tels - Megiddo → back through North Slope of Mount Carmel is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through North Slope of Mount Carmel → back through Tel Megiddo is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tel Megiddo → Sebastia is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.