The Valkhof of Charlemagne

Charlemagne, emperor of a realm that spanned half Europe, by tradition chose the hill by Nijmegen as one of his favourite dwelling places. From the Valkhof he looked out over the Waal and the wide river lands. Here he is said to have given judgment, held feasts and gathered his knights about him. In the stories that later flowered, the court became a place of splendour, where the great deeds of emperor and paladins began.

Empires pass, and the palace of Nijmegen too fell prey to time and to later wars; the greater part was pulled down. Yet something remained standing: the little Carolingian chapel, one of the oldest stone buildings in the land, and a piece of wall called the Barbarossa ruin, after an emperor who built there centuries after Charlemagne. Whoever walks today through the Valkhof park treads the place where the legend of the great emperor took root in Nijmegen, and where old stones still whisper of a court that was once the centre of an empire.