Nymwegen may be considered the twin city of Arnhem; when one is mentioned the other is instinctively thought of. They lie close to each other, are of about the same population, offer the same general aspects, and have played parts of equal importance in the general history of the country; but of the two, Nymwegen is possibly the more diverting. It is two cities in one--the older part being purely Dutch, with its old Dutch buildings and a few Dutch types which are mocked by the declivity of some of its streets; the more modern and larger part being distinctively German, with its _platzes_, the general distribution and embellishment of its thoroughfares, and the density of its greenery. The center of this German portion of Nymwegen is the Keiser-Karelplein, a beautiful square from which the different streets radiate; but what should be the pleasing quiet of the neighborhood is constantly and mercilessly broken by the shrieks of the engine of a noisy tram train that rattles around among the trees as if hunting in vain for a convenient exit. Yet another example of the very esthetic habit that the Dutch have of demolishing old fortifications and planting the sites as public pleasure grounds may be seen in the Kronenburg Park, the contour of whose slopes adds admirably to the general landscape effect. Down at the bottom is a duck-dotted lake bordered with the benches that constitute the trysting places of many a young Nymwegen couple, so unconscious of any but their own affairs that they suffer old ladies to sit upon the same bench and knit and spy with generous eyes upon the lovers’ advances. At the farther edge of the lake they have mercifully preserved one of the sixteen towers that once strengthened the town walls. The Waal, one of the many branches of the Rhine, is a busier river at Nymwegen than the real Rhine is at Arnhem. Tows of long, narrow boats, typical of the Rhine above Cologne, ply up and down under the great iron railway bridge and lend to the city more of a German air than ever. Overlooking the river some distance above the railway bridge are the shady pleasure grounds of the Valkhof, one of the seven hills upon which the city of Nymwegen was originally built and where Charlemagne erected an imperial palace, later destroyed by the French in 1796. An interesting and picturesque ruin is a small fragment of the old palace church, built by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, while near by may be seen the oldest remnant of ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands--the sixteen-sided Gothic castle chapel, rebuilt a number of times after being consecrated originally by Pope Leo III in 799.