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 Safed it runs 328 km to Safed; allow about 4 h 57 of riding. It goes by way of Ridván Gardens, Sebastia and back through Ridván Gardens. It crosses from Israel into Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
If you stand on the top of Tel Hazor on a clear day, the view is of the Hula valley to the north and the hills of Upper Galilee to the west, with the snow-capped hump of Mount Hermon, in winter, sitting at the far end. The tel itself is a vast, flat-topped mound, the largest ancient site in Israel's north, rising out of the fields near Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar. It is what archaeologists call a tel, a hill made of the layers of cities built one on top of another over thousands of years.
Read the complete Tel Hazor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tel Hazor is where the day begins. Next is Ridván Gardens.
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 comes up about 59 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 164 km into the recorded legs you reach Sebastia. Next is back through 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 through Ridván Gardens, late in the day. Next is Tel Hazor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Hazor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tel Hazor. That is the ride.
Tel Hazor → Ridván Gardens is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ridván Gardens → Sebastia is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sebastia → back through Ridván Gardens is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Ridván Gardens → Tel Hazor is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.