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.
A 408 km round trip from Tyre - roughly 7 h 02 in the saddle. On the way it passes Qalaat Chakra, Junayn Garden, Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of and Sebastia. It crosses Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 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 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Junayn Garden.
On the coastal plain of western Galilee, between Nahariya and Akko, a small garden known as Junayn is one of the Bahá'í holy places in Israel. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, spent his final years in exile in this region in the late nineteenth century, after being banished by the Ottoman authorities from Persia and then from Baghdad, Istanbul and Edirne. Once his confinement in the prison-city of Akko was relaxed, he would visit gardens around the town, and this was one of them. The Bahá'í holy places in Haifa and western Galilee, including the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí and the terraced gardens on Mount Carmel, were listed by UNESCO in 2008. The gardens are tended with remarkable precision by Bahá'í volunteers from around the world, and the atmosphere is serene.
Read the complete Junayn Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Junayn Garden. 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 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.
Sebastia sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of comes up about 268 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Junayn Garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Junayn Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 312 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Junayn Garden. 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 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.
The route ends here after 408 km.
Tyre → Qalaat Chakra is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Chakra → Junayn Garden is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Junayn Garden → Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of → Sebastia is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sebastia → back through Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of → back through Junayn Garden is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Junayn Garden → back through Qalaat Chakra is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Chakra → Tyre is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.