Berg en Dal-aqueduct | Cortendijk and Moers-Asberg
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
196 km
Riding-time estimate
3 h 23
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.
196 km from Hengstdal to Hengstdal, about 3 h 23 of riding. On the way it passes Till, Xanten-CUT, Moers-Asberg and back through Xanten-CUT. It crosses from Netherlands into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 Xanten-CUT.
3. Xanten-CUT
Xanten is an old Roman town that still behaves like a small, cosy market town on the Lower Rhine, and right next to it lies one of the largest archaeological parks in Germany. Colonia Ulpia Traiana, CUT for short, was founded around AD 100 under the emperor Trajan, who gave it the rank of a colonia and his family name. At its height it was a walled city of several thousand people, the second most important Roman city in the province of Lower Germany after Cologne.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Xanten-CUT. Next is Moers-Asberg.
4. Moers-Asberg
Asberg is a quiet district on the southern edge of Moers, on the left bank of the Lower Rhine, and beneath its houses and fields lies the Roman fort of Asciburgium, one of the earliest military bases on the Rhine frontier. It was founded around the time of the emperor Augustus or soon after, garrisoned by cavalry and auxiliary troops, and abandoned toward the end of the first century, when the Rhine shifted its course and moved away from the fort. The site is now part of the Lower German Limes UNESCO site, and although there is little to see above ground, information boards and outlines help you imagine the scene.