Berg en Dal-aqueduct | Cortendijk and Kalkar-Kalkarberg
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
209 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 22
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Hengstdal it runs 209 km to Hengstdal; allow about 4 h 22 of riding. The stops in between: Till, Fort Pannerden, Kalkar-Kalkarberg and back through Fort Pannerden. It crosses from Netherlands into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Berg en Dal-aqueduct | Cortendijk
Water is the oldest luxury a city can have, and Roman Nijmegen insisted on it. A legion and a town of thousands needed clean drinking water, and the springs in the foothills at the edge of the plateau, near what is now Berg en Dal, provided it. The Romans built an aqueduct to carry it down to the fortress, a gently sloping channel which ran for several kilometres. Most of it was buried or built at ground level, so the remains are traces in the soil rather than tall arches, and archaeologists have followed it by digging and mapping, with a few sections uncovered and marked. It is one of the few places in the Netherlands where you can walk the line of a Roman water supply, and it forms part of the Lower German Limes on the UNESCO list.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Berg en Dal-aqueduct | Cortendijk is where the day begins. Next is Till.
2. Till
The Lower Rhine around Kalkar and Kleve is wide, flat country: green polders, willows along drainage ditches, brick farmhouses and church spires visible for miles. Till is a small village here, part of Bedburg-Hau, just off the Rhine embankments between Kalkar and Kleve, with Emmerich across the river. It lies close to the line of the Roman frontier, the Lower German Limes, which followed the Rhine to the North Sea.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Till comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort Pannerden.
3. Fort Pannerden
Right where the Rhine enters the Netherlands and splits in two, the Dutch put a fort. Fort Pannerden was built around 1870 at the point where the river divides into the Waal, flowing west toward Nijmegen and Rotterdam, and the Pannerdens Kanaal, which feeds the Nederrijn and the IJssel. Control the split, and you control how much water goes where, which in a country defended by deliberate flooding mattered enormously. The fort, a low, heavy brick and earth structure surrounded by a moat, guarded the dykes and sluices that could send water into the defensive lines further west. It is counted among the Dutch Water Defence Lines listed by UNESCO.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort Pannerden. Next is Kalkar-Kalkarberg.
4. Kalkar-Kalkarberg
Near the Dutch border, where the Rhine flows through wide meadows and dyked farmland, the small town of Kalkar holds a surprising amount of history. The Kalkarberg is a low rise near Altkalkar, and on it stood the Roman fort of Burginatium, one of the posts along the Lower German Limes, now part of the UNESCO-listed Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The rise would have given a valuable view over the river plain, and the fort controlled the road between Xanten and Nijmegen. Today it is fields and trees, but the shape of the land still hints at the old fortification.