Nijmegen-Valkhof area | Hunnerpark and Monheim-Haus Bürgel
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
305 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 53
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
A 305 km round trip from Nijmegen - roughly 4 h 53 in the saddle. On the way it passes Till, Alpen-Drüpt, Krefeld-Gellep and Monheim-Haus Bürgel. It crosses from Netherlands into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Nijmegen-Valkhof area | Hunnerpark
Nijmegen sits on the first real hills that the Rhine delta meets, and on the Hunerberg, now a leafy suburb with a park, the Romans built a fortress. From about the year 70, after the Batavian revolt had been crushed, the Tenth Legion, Legio X Gemina, was stationed here, some five thousand men in a stone-walled camp. It was a serious piece of engineering, a mini-city of barracks, workshops, a hospital and a commander's house, and the legionaries were here for about thirty years. The civilian town that grew beside it later became the first in the Netherlands to receive Roman town rights.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Nijmegen-Valkhof area | Hunnerpark 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 38 km in. Next is Alpen-Drüpt.
3. Alpen-Drüpt
On the flat farmland of the Lower Rhine, between Alpen and Rheinberg, there is little to catch the eye: fields of maize and potatoes, poplars along ditches, brick farmhouses and the occasional windmill. Yet this was once the edge of the Roman world. The Rhine formed the frontier of the empire, and along its banks the Romans built legionary fortresses, forts, watchtowers and temporary camps. Alpen-Drüpt is one of the sites included in the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Lower German Limes, inscribed by UNESCO in 2021; like many on the list, it survives mainly below ground, known from aerial photographs and excavations rather than standing ruins.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
76 km in you reach Alpen-Drüpt. Next is Krefeld-Gellep.
4. Krefeld-Gellep
Most people pass Krefeld-Gellep without a second thought, because the view is dominated by the harbour of Uerdingen, chemical works and Rhine barges. Yet this is one of the most important Roman and early medieval sites on the Lower Rhine. The Roman fort here was called Gelduba, and it belongs to the Lower German Limes, the frontier along the river that UNESCO recognised in 2021. Tacitus mentions Gelduba in his account of the Batavian revolt of 69 and 70 AD, when legions and rebels fought around the camp, and archaeologists have found traces of that violence in the ground.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Krefeld-Gellep, about halfway. Next is Monheim-Haus Bürgel.
5. Monheim-Haus Bürgel
Haus Bürgel is a manor farm that sits on top of a Roman fort, quite literally. The walls of a late Roman fortification, built in the fourth century to guard the Rhine frontier, form part of the foundations and outer walls of the medieval and later farm buildings, and the site is part of the Lower German Limes World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2021. Between Monheim and Düsseldorf-Urdenbach, it lies in a broad meadow landscape on the right bank of the Rhine.