No. 1 The Kerkenpaden

Advice: Take something to drink with you because you cycle a lot through nature. If you want to sit on a terrace somewhere, you have to deviate from the route.

Where does it come from, those Kerkenpaden?

During the Eighty Years' War, Prince Frederik Hendrik and his state army besieged the city of Groenlo and the surrounding area. He managed to expel the Spanish king in 1627. Because the expelled king was Catholic, Catholicism was also banned in this region. The Catholic churches here became Protestant.

Church services could now only be held secretly in farms or barns in the countryside. These 'hidden churches' were often at a greater distance and had to be traveled on foot or by cart. The Catholic church in Zwillbrock, just across the border, could also be visited. However, this was too far for many. The faithful sometimes attended a church service several times a day and so all kinds of paths and roads were created. Often they went over the ground of others. This was allowed by the residents. This created a network of church paths.

Because the Catholic faith was later allowed again, the church paths have been forgotten.

In the early 1990s, the church paths were brought back to life thanks to:

The Zieuwentse Kerkenpaden Foundation.