Days 8-9 (August 25-26, 2026): Namur, Dinant, and Home!

Sometimes, the temptation exists to squeeze too much in.  Perhaps adding Namur and Dinant was just that.  However, their sights and the ease of train access made it too tempting.  I think that, by today, Pam was saturated and exhausted.  The days have started early, have been long, and have included 10+ kilometres of walking.  By this morning, I think she was fried and would have gladly slept in and spent the day browsing in stores.  However, she is a trooper and, knowing how much I wanted to see Namur and Dinant, she set out with me.  The compromise was the 9:30AM train, instead of the 8:30!

The trip from Brussels-Luxembourg to Namur is 45 minutes; from Namur to Dinant is 30 minutes; and from Dinant back to Brussels-Luxembourg is an hour and 20 minutes.  The drawing card in both Namur and Dinant is the presence of a citadel overlooking each city, with some peripheral sights added to the mix.  In that sense, both presented a very different focus than all of our other city explorations on this trip.

When we arrived in Namur at 10:15, the local bus route that we were to take to the citadel was on an altered route plan, due to construction. We ended up taking a taxi, since time was of the essence. We followed a walking tour from the top of the mountain, down through the various parts of the citadel, stopping to see the museum halfway down the mountain.  From there, we took in a few sights in Namur's historic centre before heading to the train station for a waffle lunch and boarding the train to Dinant at 12:50.  

Compared to Namur's 120,000 population, Dinant is a paltry 11,000.  It is set in a valley on the banks of the Meuse River, with the citadel perched high on the mountain on the east bank of the river.  The walk from the station to the staircase base is short.  We stopped to check out the impressive domed cathedral on the way, as well as a small museum about Adolf Sax, who invented the saxophone.  Then it was up the 408 stairs to the citadel!  The interpretation exhibits in the citadel are excellent, albeit somewhat disturbing, given the atrocities carried out by the Germans in World War I. Afterwards, we headed back down the 408 steps and straight to the station for the ride back to Brussels, arriving there at 5:30.

During our week here, we have had Japanese, Italian, Mediterranean, and Chinese food.  Tonight, we decided to go Indian. It has been an ethnocultural smorgasbord of a week!  Belgium doesn't really have a national menu.  Moules et frites (mussels and fries) is the most popular dish for tourists, as well as a Flemish stew.  But neither appealed to us a great deal.

Tomorrow will require a 4:45AM rise in order to get to the airport for our flight home.  I don't know how this week has gone so quickly.










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