Nijmegen Audio Tours

Nijmegen has the oldest city rights in the Netherlands, granted in 1230, but its history stretches back much further: the Romans built a legionary fortress here in the 1st century AD as part of the Rhine frontier, naming it Noviomagus Batavorum. Charlemagne built a palace on the Valkhof hill overlooking the Waal River, and the Carolingian chapel that survives from that complex is one of the few physical reminders in the Netherlands of the Frankish empire.

In September 1944, Nijmegen was a pivotal point in Operation Market Garden, the Allied airborne operation.

The crossing of the Waal River by American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne in broad daylight, using flimsy canvas boats under German fire, remains one of the most extraordinary moments of the entire campaign. Today the city is equally associated with the Vierdaagse, the International Four Days Marches, an annual walking event held every July since 1909 that draws up to 50,000 participants from around the world and turns the city into an enormous, good-natured outdoor festival.