It seems to be a tradition, we found out afterwards: Saturday before Christmas a run is held in this little town, over distances of 2, 10 and 21.2 kilometers. Indeed: Half a marathon. For those that do not want to run, the same distances can be walked; That is: 5, 10 and, indeed, 21.2 kilometers.
The first part leads from Linschoten along the river called “Lange Linschoten” to Oudewater, another old small city, and from there along dykes and polder roads – all straight on – back to Woerden, where the Lange Linschoten was reached again, and that was followed into Linschoten.
The first part has been covered before: in one of the legs of the UtrechtPad, but in the opposite direction.
I took some pictures along the way, and the track is available in Garmin, general, and Comma-separated formats.
Month: December 2008
Streekpad Nijmegen
The Netherlands from the delta of two of the bigger European rivers: Rhine and Maas. Where these two come close, the land between has always been vulnerable for flooding; you find low and high grounds – oriented mainly from East to West. An area also where water could not easily flow once the level became too low. People living on the higher spots – often the result of centuries of wind-deposits of sands, forming bands of dunes, and on the highest tops – named “donk” – the villages were built.
The Romans used these east-west located higher grounds for their roads along the river, and at given points, fortresses were build – and Nijmegen is said to be developed from such a place: “Novio Magus” used to be an important location, on the Limen – the Northern boundary of the Roman Empire. It followed the river Rhine; in those days, the flow of the Rhine was very different than the current riverbeds – without enclosure of dikes, the area between the rivers was shared by both in times of high water levels.
The route is 117 kilometers, and it is estimated we could cover is all in 5 walks of 20-25 km each – longer than the estimated distances in the booklet. Most of the route can be covered by train and bus, where Nijmegen is the nave of all travel, by bus and train.
These pages cover all the legs, including the tracking data in a separate directory.