Cross the Waal

 Today was not a full on bike across the country day. I wanted to be in Nijmegen for the day as I was expecting there to be a few events. In actuality I think there was only one event, and that was the crossing of the Waal.

I should be very grateful as today this re-enactment is like me, one day late. But it still (attempted) to start out at the very moment of the crossing on 20 September 1944 at 14:57.

The start of the morning ride was easy enough as it was entirely downhill. I arrived at Keizer Traianusplein which was the site of one of the bloody battles in the city of Nijmegen. I parked my bike near by and simply went around to explore the city.

Mainly I found myself in the central market-like area. Here it was a combination of the usual commercial suspects and farmers market(-garden) type stalls.

I wanted to get lunch, and whenever I am in these kinds of situations it always takes me forever to decide, which is ridiculous because most of the places are the same enough, or usually, I find, good enough. But this indecisiveness helps make it more likely that I will walk around more and see more of the city.

There are 3 Bridges in Nijmegen that cross the wall, of which only two existed during Market-Garden. I will cross the Waal Bridge tomorrow, but today concerns the area around the rail bridge, which since the war has had a nice pedestrian/bicycle add-on built to it (called the Snelbinder). I crossed over this bridge on foot to see the strange encampment on the other side.

What can I say? It was a small city of re-enactors. These would be the people who would cross from south to north in those little canvas boats later in the day.

I have to admit, I do find the presence of the re-enactors sometimes unnerving. And I also have to admit that I find some of the re-enactors more unnerving than others. In truth I do not honestly know how to feel about the whole thing. These people are re-enacting something horrible. The reason is always something about remembrance, but if we are being honest, there is something a little morbid about it. And yes, I mean "we". Obviously I'm doing something of a re-enactment myself by doing this whole trip. And not to mention the type of re-enactment I do every Tuesday evening involving longswords.

But there you have it, someone has to dress up in an SS uniform.

Anyway, after more exploration and lunch and such, I made my way back to the rail bridge to see the crossing. My intention was to view the crossing from the bridge, but it turns out I had the wrong bridge. The better location would have been De Oversteek bridge (the new bridge) as it is much closer to the correct site.

All the same, I found a reasonable place to watch and settled in before it was time.

Near to 14:57 a whole bunch of barges began to come up and down the river, and as it turns out, they had more right of way than a re-enactment consisting of a handful of canvas boats.

It's nice to know, once again, that I am not the only one late to these things.

Fortunately, the pancake boat was nice enough to stop (and give the best seats in the house to their passengers) and the crossing was able to proceed. I watched them until they went out of site behind a jetty and started to return to the bridge where my bicycle was parked as various kinds of gunfire erupted from the landing site. I have no idea what happened over there.

The heat of the day (ok, ok, not THAT hot) made me decide to have a coffee and make the tedious ascent back up to "Mountain and Valley", which I am writing this.

Tomorrow I will make the final stretch of this journey and go father than the tanks of the allied operations were able to go. I will finally arrive in Arnhem. The fight for Arnhem belongs to the British 1st Airborne division and the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.