Climb to the northern edge of the Kops Plateau and the land falls away to a wide green river valley, the Waal, the Rhine's biggest arm, and beyond it the flat polders of the Betuwe stretch toward the horizon. The ridge you stand on is a relic of the Ice Age. About a hundred and fifty thousand years ago an enormous glacier pushed ahead of itself a wall of sand and gravel, and the hills around Nijmegen, which locals call the seven hills even though nobody agrees which seven, are its leftovers. For the Dutch, who live mostly below sea level, this is genuinely high ground.
The Romans noticed. A high place beside a navigable river at the edge of an empire was irresistible, and the north slope of the plateau was part of their legionary camp, a position from which they watched the Rhine frontier. This point on the plateau is included in the Lower German Limes, the frontier of the Roman Empire along the Rhine, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Below the slope runs the Waal and the great bridge at Nijmegen, which became famous in September 1944. During Operation Market Garden, American paratroopers crossed the river in canvas boats under heavy fire, and then British tanks and American infantry seized the bridge. The story is well documented and the memorials are numerous, the most evocative being a quiet riverside walkway near the bridge.
Riding here is flat, tidy and polite, a landscape for easy touring rather than for bends. The roads along the dikes, the embankments that hold back the river, make a charming ride when the traffic is light, with views over water meadows, willows and cows. Wind is the real hazard, because there is nothing to stop it, and a headwind on a dike road can be hard going. Nijmegen has all the fuel, food and repair you need.
Take a stop in one of the riverside cafes, with a view of the bridge and the barges, and try a bitterbal or a slice of apple pie. The best seasons are late spring, when the meadows are green and the light is long, and early autumn. In winter the river can flood the water meadows, and the dikes become high ground in the oldest sense.