clairedavieswriter

Inspired by a tourist map at my guesthouse, Bernard and I set off this morning for a gentle tour of the city. We hadn’t gone far when I was lured off track by a nice looking café. Well, it was important to restore my caffeine levels. And I appreciated the details – the little cube of cinnamon cake, and the vial of hot water for diluting your americano – so much that I had two.

And having finally reached a country where vegetarianism isn’t considered an oddity, it seemed rude not to sample the menu

While watching the world go by – mostly by bicycle, variously loaded with shopping bags, dogs, children, sports equipment and in one case, another bicycle – I reflected on my preconceptions of Nijmegen. I realised I’d arrived here expecting to find somewhere still dominated by the events of September 1944.
Instead, quite rightly, I found the oldest city in the Netherlands to be a vibrant, forward looking place. As its motto says, old city, young vibe. In fact if I’d based my view on who I saw riding past the café, I’d have sworn I was the only person in town over the age of 30. Though that may have been because the cafe was on the way to the beach…

And guess how the Dutch go to the beach?

Imagine how big the car park would have been if they’d all driven instead. But with bicycle freeways like this, gently sloping up to rooftop height…

And then over the Waal river bridge, alongside the railway, who needs a car?

From the north side of the river, I looped back to the city’s third and newest major river crossing, the Oversteek, which only opened in 2013. And here I found that, while Nijmegen may not dwell on the past, neither does it forget.

An information panel explained that the Oversteek had been built on the exact spot where, on the night of 20 September 1944, soldiers of the US 82nd Airborne Division paddled over in canvas boats, to seize control of the crossing from the north side. Each of the 48 lamp posts on the bridge represents a US soldier killed that night. To this day, every evening at sunset, a veteran marches across the bridge, and the lights go on in sequence as he passes them. They call it the Lights Crossing.