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.
From Safed it runs 187 km to Safed; allow about 3 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of Qalaat Chakra, Qalaat al-Chakif, Qalaat Deir Kifa and Tyre. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules.
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 Qalaat Chakra.
Before anything else, the honest part: this place lies in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres from the border with Israel, in an area that has seen repeated war, most recently in 2024, and that remains militarised and unpredictable. The listed neighbours on the route sheet, from Kiryat Shmona to Tyre, sit on opposite sides of a frontier that is closed to ordinary travel. Check your government's travel advice and local conditions very carefully before even thinking about a visit, and do not try to approach from the Israeli side.
Read the complete Qalaat Chakra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Chakra comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Qalaat al-Chakif.
Perched on a cliff edge some three hundred metres above the gorge of the Litani river in southern Lebanon, Beaufort Castle, known in Arabic as Qalaat al-Chakif, has watched over the borderlands of the Levant for nearly a thousand years. The Crusaders took and fortified it in the twelfth century, and it was finally surrendered to Saladin in 1190 after a long siege. Later it was held by the Mamluks, rebuilt and repaired by local rulers, and in the twentieth century it became a fiercely contested military position, occupied by Palestinian fighters and then by the Israeli army from 1982 until its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Its stones have been battered by everything from siege engines to modern artillery.
Read the complete Qalaat al-Chakif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach Qalaat al-Chakif. Next is Qalaat Deir Kifa.
Southern Lebanon has a castle on almost every second hilltop, and Qalaat Deir Kifa is one of the less-known ones, a ruined fortification above the village of Deir Kifa in the rolling hills of Jabal Amel, between the Litani river and the coast at Tyre. Like many sites in this landscape, it has been built on, fought over and reused across several eras, and today what remains is stone walls, scattered blocks and a view across a countryside of olive groves, tobacco terraces and stony ridges.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Deir Kifa, about halfway. Next is Tyre.
Tyre was already ancient when Alexander the Great arrived in 332 before Christ. Then it was an island city just off the coast of what is now southern Lebanon, famously rich and famously stubborn, and when its citizens refused to open their gates, Alexander built a causeway out to the island and besieged it for months. Sand piled up against that causeway over the centuries, and the island became the peninsula you see today, with the modern city of Tyre spreading across it and the old harbour still busy with fishing boats.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tyre sits at 94 km, about halfway. Next is back through Qalaat Deir Kifa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Deir Kifa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa comes up about 120 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Qalaat al-Chakif.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat al-Chakif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Qalaat al-Chakif. Next is back through Qalaat Chakra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Chakra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Chakra, 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.
The route ends here after 187 km.
Tel Hazor → Qalaat Chakra is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Chakra → Qalaat al-Chakif is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat al-Chakif → Qalaat Deir Kifa is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Deir Kifa → Tyre is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tyre → back through Qalaat Deir Kifa is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa → back through Qalaat al-Chakif is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Qalaat Chakra is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Chakra → Tel Hazor is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.