- Distance: 16km
- Duration (with breaks): 4h
- Route type: loop
- Start/end: Beek town, next to church called Bartholomeuskerkje
- Closest major city: Nijmegen
Why this route? As I was browsing for a day hike in a somewhat hilly area, Nijmegen caught my attention. I’ve never been to this city, let alone its surroundings. My best hiking friend mapy.cz (yep, Czech app, which I still use everywhere, in English btw) showed me some hilly sections with hiking trails next to Nijmegen, let’s go!
N70 was not in my plan, I was simply going to explore the area and make a route on the spot. From the train station, we rented bikes (OV-fiets) and went to the outskirts of Nijmegen. Accidentally we biked further than initially planned and ended up in a little town called Beek. That’s where we found out there’s a trail called N70, which seemed to cover most of the area I wanted to explore. Plus we could simply follow the signs. Sounds like we have a hiking plan.
How to get there?
- Public transport: take a train to Nijmegen. From there you can either take a bus to Beek or rent an OV fiets and bike there (~20 min).
- Car: head to Beek, where you will find a few parking lots. The trail starts close to Plus supermarket, which might be a good place to leave your car.
About N70. The route name references to 1970, the year of nature protection (Natuurbeschermingsjaar). That is also the year when the idea to establish a route in Nijmegen was born.
During this hike, you’ll visit 8 hills (Dutch prefer to call them “mountains”) that have funny names like Boterberg (Butter mountain), Sterrenberg (Star mountain), and Duivelsberg (Devil’s mountain). This also means constant ups and downs, ensuring a great workout. According to the website of the route, it has 500 steps and 375m of elevation gain/loss.
Another nice thing about this walk is that you can start it pretty much anywhere you want as it is a circular route. There are 6 suggested starting points, you can find them and a lot more info about the hike here.
So how was it? Overall it was a very pleasant hike. I can confirm that we constantly went up and down, which is an awesome treat in the Netherlands. The terrain is easy to walk on though and there are a few viewpoints to visit. While it is a popular route, we did not have any problems with keeping our pace and enjoying the trail, there’s enough space for everyone.
The trail is very well marked, you just need to follow green wooden poles of N70. Occasionally we came across a few places to get snacks, there is also a supermarket in Beek.
As a final treat after the walk we got true Italian ice-cream or gelato at M’ijsjes back in Beek, which claims to be the smallest ice-cream shop in the Netherlands. It is a tiny cute house for sure and the ice-cream is super tasty.
Fun fact. A small section of the trail goes on the border with Germany. I could not resist and went over the border for a few minutes. Oh, the freedom to cross the borders with no restrictions, I miss it!
