A day trip to Dinant (Dinant with a T because Dinan without T is in Brittany)

Summer has arrived in Belgium, at least for the week-end: sun is shining, sky is blue, 25C… perfect weather for a trip to Dinant and its citadel. Dinant is located in Wallonia on the river Meuse.
We drove over there late morning, wasted half an hour in a traffic jam caused by an accident just right before our exit on the highway (talking about bad luck), followed diligently the signs for the citadel, and nicely parked at our goal. The ticket for the citadel includes a tour of the place (obviously) and the access to the lift to reach the town down the cliff. The citadel was built to defend the bridge over the Meuse river… therefore it was positioned at the edge of the cliff, right above the bridge.

Immediately we were amazed by the view on the town, the river and … the bridge. Of course we had our first session of photos (with both Alex and Wolfram competing for the best photo, we have to thank little Fabian who was hungry and forced us to move :) )

We took the lift down to the town, found a restaurant on the riverbank and had lunch. Half in the sun, half in the shade… it felt like being on vacation!
Before going back up to the citadel, we decided to take a boat tour on the river. Adventurous as we are (and also to guarantee the best photos) we rented a small electrical boat.

With Wolfram and Fabian as captains we explored the riverside of the Meuse around Dinant.
Our 2 captains in action.

After 1 hour of “sailing” we gave back the boat and had a quick look at the church.

Back at the citadel we took the guided tour. Not much to say about the tour to be honest. It was basically a succession of rooms with reconstitutions of key moments of the history of Dinant. Boring, even for kids… one exception though. The last room takes you through a reconstitution of a trench from the first world war which was impressive and to a shelter which is perfectly preserved, just happened to have been bombed and simply flipped to the side. This means you get to walk in a shelter with the ground with a slope of 30 degrees, to hold pillars that have the same slope. Really weird experience.

One last look at the view from the terrace of the citadel (or most likely observation / shooting terrace back in the days when the citadel was active) and we left Dinant.