#55. N70 trail in the Netherlands: 22 June 2025

Par for the course for the 2025 excursions, the trip to the Netherlands began with drama. Candelaria Martinez, our housekeeper of 44 years, landed in the hospital with multiple health problems a couple of days before my departure. We did not initially recognize the seriousness of her situation, given that she had remained very active at age 88. Thankfully, her son Jose Luis was able to obtain family medical leave to join her in New Orleans, and thus I felt more comfortable sticking to my plan of doing four hikes in three European countries in 10 days.The second problem paled in comparison. My flight to Amsterdam was canceled, causing me to depart a day later and condensing my trip to the Netherlands from 3 to 2 days.

The idea for the Netherlands excursion originated at doggy camp, the gathering of dog owners who religiously assemble on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Audubon Park. Jen Lentz and Augusto Ochoa routinely bring their three little dogs, and several months earlier Jen expressed interest in accompanying me on one of my adventures. An LSU professor and expert in Usher syndrome (Google it), she travels frequently to professional meetings. When the dates didn’t work out for her conference in Salt Lake City (a hiking Mecca), we looked to her next meeting, which would be held in Nijmegen, Netherlands. If there is one geography almost as flat is Louisiana, it was the Netherlands, so we realized our options might be limited. However, AllTrails pointed us toward trail N70, an 8.6-mile loop with an elevation gain of 1500 feet. No, we would never get higher than 400 feet. Rather, the sum of the uphill stretches across eight hills would total 1500 feet.

I had arranged the trip to visit the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam en route to Nijmegen. Despite losing one of my three days in the Netherlands, I was not to be denied. I landed at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on a Saturday, and bleary eyed, took a tram directly to the museum. The exquisite paintings by van Gogh were sufficient stimulus to keep me awake, and I felt well rewarded for making the effort. From there, I made my way via train to the town of Nijmegen, 1.5 hours away.

Very pleased with myself for having navigated four segments of public transportation without getting lost, I arrived in Jen’s hotel by midafternoon. As she finished her meetings, I grabbed an hour of sleep. Jen was familiar with the layout of the town and walked us to the charming downtown area for dinner. We then found the local supermarket, where are we purchased breakfast and lunch for the next day.

The temperature was forecast to reach the mid 80s by noon on Sunday, so we sacrificed sleep in favor of a 6:30 AM departure. Our Uber took exactly 10 minutes to reach the “trailhead,” which proved to be a street corner in front of a hotel. I downloaded the map from AllTrails, and we set out on a paved street, congratulating ourselves for the early departure while it was still pleasantly cool.

N70 resembles a figure-8 superimposed on a plate of spaghetti, which loops through the rolling forests of Berg en Dal. We quickly moved from city street into lovely, wooded areas with dirt paths.

The vistas were largely meadows bordered by forests. Instead of wildlife, we had to settle for three ponies, three horses, and a herd of white cows.

The trail provided numerous twists and turns. As we got deep into conversation, we managed to take several wrong turns. AllTrails tracked our progress along the route and (thanks to excellent connectivity) immediately advised us when we had strayed from the trail.

If I had feared the trail would not offer much of a challenge, I need not have worried. There are enough ups and downs that I was breathing heavily on uphill stretches. I never got my trekking poles out of my backpack, but a few others on the trail did have them and on a couple of the downhills, they would have been useful. Jen and I consulted on whether this trail should be considered “easy, moderate, hard, or strenuous.” We agreed it was “easy to moderate”: easy for Jen, moderate for me.

We had plenty of company on the trail, since it was a beautiful Sunday day. We were regularly passed by trail joggers, as well as hikers like us. One couple had braved the trail with a stroller, less than ideal for the uneven terrain in places.

Jen and I made for good hiking partners. The crisscrossing layout of the trail would have made it easy to cut corners on completing the full N70 circuit, but we jointly concurred that we had to cover every foot of it. As we came to the end of the hike, AllTrails showed us to be 200 yards short of the point where we had started, so we immediately set out to cover that gap. We settled down in a charming open-air café to enjoy a refreshing drink, only to realize that we were already 10 minutes over checkout time at the hotel. In unison, we rose from our chairs and left the café without ordering, motivated by that shared sense of respecting the rules. Somehow it seemed OK to be late for our checkout because we were still hiking, but not because we were drinking lemonade.

Back at the hotel, we quickly showered and vacated the room, avoiding comment from the housekeeping staff on our tardy departure. The young woman at the front desk gave us instructions for transport that would get us back to the airport in Amsterdam, where we’d be spending the night (in separate hotels). In contrast to the smooth sailing for all aspects of the trip to this point, the return presented the usual traveler headaches. We missed the direct train and ended up on a slightly longer route. Once at the airport, we made our way to the area where the hotel shuttles pass to pick up guests. Hordes of people anxiously waited as shuttle after shuttle for various hotels passed. After some 45 minutes, the Ibis hotel shuttle for my hotel pulled up to the curb. Half the assembled mass descended on the bus, pushing to squeeze in before the door closed, knowing that the next one would not come for another 40 minutes. That moment of chaos was nothing compared to the arrival at the first stop, as passengers realized there were three Ibis hotels, and they frantically searched their travel documents for the one they had booked.

Jen and I had planned to meet up for dinner at her hotel. But by the time I checked into my room, unpacked my sweaty clothes, and reorganized my suitcase for the 4:30 am departure from the hotel the next day, I had to cancel on Jen. The combination of jet lag, 85° heat, the 9-mile hike, the 2-hour train ride back to Schiphol airport, and the chaotic hotel shuttle experience had done me in. I had an early dinner at the hotel restaurant, crawled back to my room, and was in bed and asleep by 8 PM.

Several times during the trip, Jen and I marveled that we’d actually pulled it off. That quick discussion at doggy camp had materialized into a rewarding excursion to an unpronounceable city in the Netherlands, hardly known for its hiking. Note to self: I'll want to get the program with locations for Jen’s upcoming professional meetings.

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