Perhaps, in a mental sense, I never truly managed to leave Nijmegen—my birthplace, where my entire family still lives. It's the city where I chased news stories on a moped as a budding journalist, where I'm still an NEC supporter to this day, and the city my friend Frank Boeijen sings about with melancholy: “In the distance lies Nijmegen at sunset, the bridge, the church tower, I’m going home…”

We were would-be poets in our shared youth. And our love for Nijmegen is more than just chauvinistic local patriotism. It’s no coincidence that in this city—still steeped in Catholicism during the twilight of the Rich Roman Catholic Life—the great dreaming began for us, kids from large families. Frank was the youngest of ten, I the youngest of eight. Our dear parents didn’t have it easy, but our home was always open and buzzing. Except in our thoughts, there was barely any privacy. “Here I was rich as a king and lonely as a child,” Frank would later sing about it.

I never cared much for the Four Days Marches. Sure, as a boy I’d walk a stretch with soldiers who had come from far and wide, marching past our house while singing in strange languages. It was the first time the world passed me by. But over time, I lost all interest in the walking and the suffering, a sentiment amplified by the anti-militarism common in my teenage years. As an adult, I’d only return to Nijmegen during the Four Days week to drink myself full in cafés along the route. The spirituality of all that walking was easily beaten by the spiritualiën—the spirits.

And yet, at some point, the idea arose to create a daily TV program about the Marches. I was amazed by the event’s growth, even fascinated by its magnetic appeal: tens of thousands of walkers trudging through the Rijk van Nijmegen, cheered on by hundreds of thousands of spectators—what on earth was happening here? Creating a show about the Four Days quickly began to feel like a “home match” to me, though I continued to be amused by the deadly serious carnival that is the event, and our coverage initially carried a healthy dose of irony.

We decided that the show shouldn’t just revolve around walking, but instead focus on atmospheric portraits, historical notes, striking stories, and quirky side-events. With a large team of creators, it became a race against the clock. No report was longer than three or four minutes—it was a rollercoaster of thousands of cuts and musical transitions. With a single press of a button, the show would be broadcast nationwide via Hilversum, always drawing more than a million viewers. Our conclusion: this shouldn’t be a report of the Four Days, but a show about the Four Days. That, we felt, was a fundamental difference.

For my farewell documentary, I rewatched all 120 episodes, which led to a vibrant final piece full of funny and passionate fragments. I interviewed four people: my childhood friend Jacques Thielen (whom I’d never have expected, as a rebellious youth, to become a regular participant—but who did, and speaks about it lyrically); Bianca Cuppen from Weurt (a brilliant storyteller who proudly calls herself a Four Days addict); Hennie Sackers (the march leader of the event); and Professor Herman Pleij (the eloquent chronicler of our national character). In my final monologue, I try to show what, for me, has become the true Feeling of the Four Days: people with deeper motives marking a turning point in their lives, often after difficult times, literally walking something off—a personal triumph that lifts them out of anonymity with meaningful stories.

It’s no coincidence that Nijmegen became the epicenter of the Four Days Marches. In my childhood, it was the most Catholic city in the country—where, well into the 1950s, the rustling of rosaries could drown out the sound of traffic. Herman Pleij once pointed this out to me: at the heart of Catholicism lies the trinity of guilt, penance, and reward. As debtors to our own failures and pain, we have deep motivations to settle scores. And for that, some suffering is required. Followed, of course, by reward. That, Herman tells me, is also the cycle of the march through the Rijk van Nijmegen: reckoning with yourself, pushing your body to its limits—blisters and sore muscles included—to finally be triumphantly welcomed with flowers on the Via Gladiola.
The moral of the story: God disappeared from Nijmegen, without ever having left.