The Maarten van Rossumpad (LAW 4) is named for the 16th century soldier (c. 1478 – June 7, 1555) who laid waste to The Hague in 1528, amongst many other cities he sacked in the course of his long and bloodthirsty career, fighting for the Dukes of Guelders and (later) for the Emperor Charles V (but mainly for his own profit).

The route starts in 's-Hertogenbosch and heads via Rossum and Zaltbommel - both places where van Rossum lived - up to Wageningen, then skirts round the southern and eastern sides of the Veluwe via Arnhem, where van Rossum owned the "Duivelshuis" and Apeldoorn, where he bought castle Het Oude Loo, to Zwolle (passing another van Rossum residence at Vaassen), before ending up in a push north to Meppel and Steenwijk (sacked and burnt in 1524). In the course of 390 km, it thus comes through quite a variety of different "typically Dutch" landscapes. 

Even the authors of the guidebook to the route aren't really convinced that van Rossum deserves to be commemorated in this way, but it's an interesting and varied route. Like the Pieterpad, it's managed by NIVON, who also publish the official guidebook - the 4th edition appeared in March 2018 (as with the Pieterpad, the GPS routes on Wandelnet aren't completely up to date, it's worth checking with the book and the updates on the NIVON site before setting off). 

Having come across bits of it on various other walks, especially around Arnhem and along the Vecht in Overijssel, I was curious to see where it went, and started doing a few stages here and there in the course of May 2019, after finishing the Pelgrimspad. Unlike the Pieterpad and Pelgrimspad, I'm not making any serious effort to do the stages in order, though.

• Maarten van Rossum (Wikipedia)
• Maarten van Rossumpad (Wandelnet)
• Maarten van Rossumpad (NIVON)

Stages

As usual, these are the stages as I actually walked them, not necessarily as recommended in the guidebook.