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 Tyre it runs 281 km to Tyre; allow about 4 h 51 of riding. It goes by way of Qalaat Deir Kifa, Tel Hazor, Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of and back through Tel Hazor. It crosses from Lebanon into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tel Hazor.
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.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Tel Hazor. Next is Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of.
In the second century AD, after the failed revolts against Rome, the centre of Jewish life moved to Galilee, and the Sanhedrin, the supreme rabbinical council, settled for a time at Bet She'arim, on a hill at the western edge of the Jezreel valley. Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the patriarch who compiled the Mishnah, the first great codification of Jewish law, lived here, and when he was buried in the necropolis, Jews from all over the diaspora wanted to be buried near him. The result is a vast network of catacombs carved into the soft limestone, listed by UNESCO in 2015.
Read the complete Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Tel Hazor sits at 187 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 256 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tyre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tyre closes the day.
Tyre → Qalaat Deir Kifa is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Deir Kifa → Tel Hazor is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Hazor → Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of → back through Tel Hazor is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tel Hazor → back through Qalaat Deir Kifa is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Deir Kifa → Tyre is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.