Altitude is a lofty word — but reasonably accurate. You can see an elevation from the train coming into town.

You can go down some hills fast enough on a bicycle to be a hazard. On the hill down from the Grote Markt toward the river, it would be easier to get off and walk.

The normal manner of vertical measurement in Holland is not "altitude," but relationship to N.A.P.

N.A.P., or Normaal Amsterdamse Peil, equal to the average level of the North Sea, is a standard for sea-level developed in the 17th century.

This "normal Amsterdam level" is officially marked physically upon a pole embedded into the second, or "Pleistocene" layer of sand in downtown Amsterdam.

Nijmegen, at its highest point, is about 31 meters, or 104 feet, above N.A.P.