More than 2,000 years of history watch the Waal flow by. Nijmegen, founded in Roman times on the hills overlooking this major branch of the Rhine, claims the title of oldest city in the Netherlands. River cruise boats moor along the Waalkade, a riverside promenade lively with restaurants and galleries, right at the foot of the old town. You need only cross the gangway, a few minutes' walk from the first shopping lanes, to begin travelling back in time: from legionnaires' camps to the battles of the Second World War, by way of Charlemagne's palace.

The Valkhof, hill of emperors

A few minutes from the quay, Valkhof Park occupies the site of a former Roman camp that became, centuries later, a Carolingian imperial palace. Charlemagne stayed here; from that era there remain a rotunda-like chapel and romantic ruins standing among the trees, carefully maintained, with wide views over the river and its constant barge traffic. It is the best place to grasp the city's geography: the powerful current, the road bridge spanning from one bank to the other and the rooftops of the old centre at its feet. Right next door, the Museum Het Valkhof displays the region's Roman finds, helmets, glassware and fresco fragments unearthed from the very hills where you are standing.

The Grote Markt and St. Stephen's Church

Heading into the shopping streets, you reach the Grote Markt, the city's commercial heart since the Middle Ages, lined with cafés beneath the gables. Nearby, St. Stephen's Church raises its Gothic mass, remodelled over the centuries; its bare interior bears the scars of history's storms, from the wars of religion to the bombings of 1944. All around, the lanes mix independent shops, bookstores and student terraces: the university gives the city a youth and energy you can feel on every street corner. Every summer, the famous Four Days Marches, the oldest of the great popular walking events, fill these same streets with tens of thousands of walkers from around the world.

1944, the memory of the Liberation

Few Dutch cities paid such a high price in the war. In February 1944, a bombing devastated the centre; in September, Operation Market Garden made Nijmegen a decisive battlefield, with the heroic crossing of the Waal by American paratroopers. The National Liberation Museum, in the surrounding area, traces those days that sealed the region's fate. In the city, the climb onto the great bridge offers a viewpoint full of meaning: it was this structure the Allies wanted to take intact, and its steel silhouette still spans the current.

Strolls among parks and ramparts

• Kronenburgerpark preserves towers and sections of the medieval walls in a green setting around a pond.
• The Velorama bicycle museum, right on the Waalkade, lines up two centuries of bicycles in the country that made cycling a way of life.
• The climb to the middle of the Waal bridge rewards walkers with a complete panorama of the old town.

The river as history's thread

When it is time to cast off, the Waalkade comes alive in the evening light and the terraces fill up. Nijmegen leaves a singular impression: that of a city that has been through everything, empires and destruction alike, without losing either its youth or its zest for life. River travellers gain a rich port call here, where every stroll crosses a different layer of the European past. The Waal continues on its way to the sea; curiosity about this region of great rivers is only just beginning.