I was thisclose to giving up on this walk. The Sunset March across the Waal River was a must-see destination for one of our guides.
Sunset March is a daily tribute to the Allied soldiers who fought for the liberation of The Netherlands, especially to those soldiers who lost their lives. In 2013 the city of Nijmegen completed the construction of a new city bridge called Oversteek [The Crossing]. It was constructed close to the area where members of the US 82nd Airborne Division crossed the river Waal on 20 September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden. 48 Allied soldiers lost their lives during this ‘Waal Crossing’. The recently completed bridge has been installed with 48 pairs of exceptional street lights. street lights. At sunset these sets of street lights are lit up pair by pair at a slow marching pace. The total duration of illumination of all these street lights is almost 12 minutes.
We got a late start, and it was really pushing it for me to keep up. I was rather embarrassed, but I rationalize it by virtue of my recovering from a bad knee — I’m just out of shape.
Here are some photos of the city, and the march.
Bizarre doll sculptures in a church, and downward to the water.
Scenes from the March.
A Bridge Too Far
Netflix is carrying the movie “A Bridge Too Far” right now. I tuned in over the course of a couple of evenings, but I never finished it. It was frankly incomprehensible. Even after being there and walking the landscape seeing it firsthand, they really did very little to make the story clear. Instead of was three hours of high-star-caliber cameo appearances. As an IMPORTANT MOVIE EVENT it was one thing. But it left me cold.
I was 10 years old when my parents took me to this 3-hour killing spree. I had no idea there were so many popular actors in it until now. All I remember leaving the theater feeling disembodied, like I didn’t really exist, except that I could sense that my mom was feeling something similar. It took me years to piece together that maybe because she was born in Holland under the German occupation and about 5 years old when this story happened… something about it resonated with us both, but we never once talked about it. Hmm, maybe I should ask her about that when I call her tomorrow.