More of this Feature • Day 1 • Day 2 • Day 3 • Day 4

Related Resources • Military Marching • Gary's Nijmegen 2001 Walk • Wendy's Nijmegen '99 • Gary's Ireland Walk • Gary's Luxembourg Review • Gary's Viborg 2-Day Walk Review • Gary's Hærvejsvandring 300K

From Other Guides • Europe for Visitors

Elsewhere on the Web • Nijmegen 4-Days Walk

Returning to Nijmegen for subsequent visits becomes more and more like a homecoming every year and the greetings are nearly as enthusiastic when you greet family after a long absence. Billeting was fairly easy and I bedded down this year with a multi-national AWACS Team, members being from Germany, Holland, Belgium and Denmark.

This year the Americans were represented 825 strong, up from 450 last year. The reason for this was generally without explanation. My thinking was many Army personnel were taking their need for marching skills seriously. (See Gary's article on Military Marching) I also heard for the first time many contingents were speaking in terms of "taking it easy" and "taking the whole day". I think they are finally learning there is no need to "jet" around the route. Training, however, was not up. Many more or less just "showed up", and others did the best they could to get a certain number of kilometers in during a given month or week. I did not hear a lot of 40 kilometers done on a weekend day. Sad fact is, with my new position in the Guard since my last Nijmegen my training suffered immensely. I had the experience and knew how to pace and project myself. But before Day one I was worried. But it was #4, and nobody likes to do any of them over again because they could not pull it off.

Next page > Day 1 > Intro, 1, 2, 3, 4

Photos copyright 2002 Gary Nelson used by permission