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.
A 433 km round trip from Nasiriyah - roughly 10 h 15 in the saddle. The stops in between: Tell Eridu Archaeological Site, The West Hammar Marshes, The Central Marshes and back through The West Hammar Marshes. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Ur stands on the flat Mesopotamian plain in southern Iraq, close to Nasiriyah, among the oldest cities in the world. Its great ziggurat, a stepped brick platform built by King Ur-Nammu around 2100 BC, still rises out of the desert, restored and shaped like a huge brick wedding cake with stairs up the front. It was a temple to the moon god Nanna, and the city around it was a major port on what was then the Euphrates, before the river shifted course and the sea retreated. Tradition names Ur as the birthplace of Abraham, which is why Pope Francis held a prayer meeting here in 2021.
Read the complete Ur Archaeological City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ur Archaeological City is where the day begins. Next is Tell Eridu Archaeological Site.
Eridu is where the Sumerians said civilisation began. According to their own king lists, kingship came down from heaven and landed first at Eridu, and the city's god, Enki, ruler of the sweet waters beneath the earth, was the keeper of the arts of civilised life. Archaeologists found a sequence of temples stacked one above another, beginning in about 5400 BC, which makes it one of the oldest settlements in Mesopotamia. On top of it all rises the ruined ziggurat of Ur-Nammu, a mud-brick stepped tower built around 2100 BC, now a worn brown stump in the desert.
Read the complete Tell Eridu Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tell Eridu Archaeological Site comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is The West Hammar Marshes.
The marshes of southern Iraq lie where the Tigris and Euphrates come together on their way to the Gulf, a vast network of reed beds, lagoons and channels that was, until recent decades, home to one of the oldest ways of life on earth. The West Hammar Marshes are the westernmost, south of the city of Nasiriyah, and this stop lies about fifteen kilometres from the small town of Al Fuhud. UNESCO inscribed the Ahwar of Southern Iraq in 2016, along with the ancient Sumerian cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu, which stood on the edge of this same wetland.
Read the complete The West Hammar Marshes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 126 km into the recorded legs you reach The West Hammar Marshes. Next is The Central Marshes.
Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in the far south of Iraq, lies a world of water, reeds and sky: the Mesopotamian Marshes, home for thousands of years to the Ma'dan, the Marsh Arabs, who build houses and great arched guest halls, the mudhif, entirely from reeds, travel by narrow boats called mashoof and keep herds of water buffalo. The Central Marshes are one of the main areas of this wetland, listed in 2016 with the archaeological cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu as the Ahwar of Southern Iraq, a World Heritage Site that joins nature and the earliest cities of Sumer.
Read the complete The Central Marshes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Central Marshes, about halfway. Next is back through The West Hammar Marshes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The West Hammar Marshes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The West Hammar Marshes sits at 233 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tell Eridu Archaeological Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tell Eridu Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tell Eridu Archaeological Site comes up about 396 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ur Archaeological City.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ur Archaeological City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ur Archaeological City closes the day.
Ur Archaeological City → Tell Eridu Archaeological Site is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tell Eridu Archaeological Site → The West Hammar Marshes is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The West Hammar Marshes → The Central Marshes is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Central Marshes → back through The West Hammar Marshes is 104 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The West Hammar Marshes → back through Tell Eridu Archaeological Site is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tell Eridu Archaeological Site → Ur Archaeological City is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.