Autumn in Belgium and Germany – words and pictures. Part 2.

Accommodation

This post (Part 2 of 3) covers our visits to the city of Dinant, on the banks of the Meuse River and then the exceptionally pretty medieval town of Monschau in western Germany. But before that I’ve included a selection of the pictures from the accommodation we rented near Namur.

I wrote in Part 1 about our first stay on this trip in Belgium being near the city of Namur in the Wallonia region. The property we stayed in was really quite decent, was well located for the places we wanted to visit and had an incredibly helpful owner.

The property was called Au four et au jardin there are pictures from there in the picture set below.

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Wandering around Dinant

I had read about the town of Dinant and it seemed to be worth a visit.  Distance from our accommodation was only about 20 miles, so it was easy enough to get to.

The city of Dinant is in the Walloon Region of southern Belgium, a region that was once part of the Roman Empire and one that is known for its many medieval towns.

Located on the banks of the Meuse River, Dinant is backed by steep cliffs that run directly behind the streets. On top of those cliffs is the unmissable fortified Citadel. If you get to Dinant we would absolutely recommend a visit to the Citadel.

At the foot of the cliffs and almost directly below the Citadel is the gothic Church of Our Lady, and there are terrific views of it from the cable car that runs from nearby to the church and up to the Citadel.

Dinant is also the home of the person who invented the saxophone – Adolphe Sax who was born there in 1814. Sax became an inventor and musician and he invented the saxophone in the early 1840s

Making the most of it

It would be fair to say that the city makes the most of that fact and in addition to the house where he lived that has some exhibits of his early designs and products there are references all over the place to Sax and his saxophones including giant colourful saxophones dotted around the streets and on the main bridge over the River Meuse.

In fact there were so many saxophones that I have included them in a separate picture gallery later in this blog post.

Dinant scenes

To be honest when we arrived at Dinant and parked alongside the river I wasn’t sure that there was going to be a great deal to see.  On top of that, the weather was overcast and everything looked a little drab.

How wrong I was. We had a great time there and really loved our visit to Dinant. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as a place to go to.

The pictures below are a selection from a general wander around .

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The impressive Citadel

I would say a visit to the Citadel is an unmissable part of a visit to Dinant – it really is a fascinating place. The current citadel was built back in 1815, although the site itself was originally fortified as far back as 1051.

There is plenty of information to be found online about the Citadel and it’s history but nothing quite beats a visit and its one we would definitely recommend.

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408 steps

There is a cable car that can be taken to the top of the cliffs to visit the citadel or you can take the 408 steps to get to the top. We opted for the cable car up but we did take the steps down … some pictures below to prove it!

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Sax Education

I mentioned earlier about the inventor of the saxophone –  Adolphe Sax and the numerous oversized and colourful saxophones that are dotted around Dinant

There’s a selection of pictures of these in the photo’ set below.

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Time to go underground

We had really enjoyed our visit to Dinant and had also read about the underground cave network called Grotte de Dinant. The caves and grottos were discovered over one hundred years ago in 1904 during the construction of a regional railway system.

The caves are also sometimes referred to as Grotte La Merveilleuse – the literal translation of that means ‘The Wonderful Cave’

Once in Dinant it’s very easy to get to the caves, they are less than a mile from the bridge over the River Meause.

An hour or so well spent

Visiting the caves isn’t a long experience. After a brief introduction from the multi lingual guide it’s very much a self-directed tour through the caves and underground chambers. The stalagmites and stalactites are well worth seeing as is the underground river. All in all it probably takes about an hour to make your way through.

Apparently at certain times of the year (namely winter) the ‘Great Hall’ of the underground chambers is inhabited by hundreds of bats. We didn’t see them on this occasion, although we did have an experience of hundreds of bats when visiting a cave in one of the temples in the Khao Lak region of Thailand a few years ago.

And interestingly …

The caves were actually used as a temporary shelter during the Second World War.  Many people from Dinant took to the caves for around 10 days or so as fighting raged around them.

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The historic town of Monschau

After leaving our accommodation in Belgium we were headed for Germany and the town of Leichlingen. On the way we decided to stop at the pretty and popular tourist town of Monschau.

Monschau is located in the hills of the Eifel Nature Park.

It’s a terrific place to visit and the old historic centre of the town has lots of old half-timbered houses that are in a remarkable state of preservation. The narrow streets have stayed almost nearly unchanged for 300 years or so.

It’s definitely a place worth visiting for a wander round and a bite to eat and drink. It really is an exceptional place, have a look at the selection of pictures from our visit to the town in the picture gallery below.

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You can read the third and final part of the Belgium and Germany trip that covers visits to Cologne and Wuppertal in Germany at this link.