Belgium 2026 III

Today, KrisDi and I went to Dinant. I don’t think Dinant is really famous for anything other than being Adolf Sax’s home town, but I don’t think that’s where he lived when he invented the saxophone.

It was a longer and more difficult train ride to get here. About two hours from end to end, and we had to change trains. Google Maps’ directions were not as clear as I’m used to them being, and we thought we had a direct route. After much debating, we asked a train station staff member (we have not always had stellar experiences with such in the past), who gave us directions that were at worst mostly right (right station to change trains, wrong number of train stops to get there).

Nonetheless, we made it safe and sound. I spent a bunch of time on email on the way, and I think KrisDi was just playing games.

Dinant is pretty. There’s not much to it, but it’s in a deep, steep valley, almost a canyon, with a river at the bottom and a fortress at the top of a cliff and a big church at the base of the cliff. It seems like there’s basically two roads: Along the river on one side, and along the river on the other side. “One Side” is named “Rue de Sax” or something similar. Guess why?

We stopped and peaked inside their gigantic old church, and then had breakfast at L’Inattendu (they didn’t have their peach seasonal special, but their ham and cheese croissant and the salmon and avocado toast we had were very good. Then we walked over to the Leffe Museum (or, Maison Leffe, which I think I now understand as “House of Leffe”), walked through their little museum-y area and and futzed around with their activities, then went and enjoyed a free “sample” (full size beer of your choice) and a special gift (full sized Leffe branded chalice). The beer was pretty good, better than I expected (not really having a very high opinion of Leffe, but not having access to any of the specific styles we tried). It was fun to sit in their beer garden and listen to the myriad languages being spoken by visitors.

Afterward, we slightly rushed to get to La Bouboule for mussels and trout (both of which were very good) and some local Dinant beers, both of which were fine. We watched a small tourist family get seated at 13:58, and then get told as 14:01 that the kitchen is closed, so they could drink, but no food after 14:00. Then we walked around the quaint little town, shopped in a chocolate shop and a crafts store, then a beer store. Wandered a bit more, ran across a group of deaf bikers and took turns photographing each other, and then back to the train… which is where we are now.

We’re headed back to Brussels, probably we’ll drop stuff at the hotel room and then diced what (if anything) we want to do abut dinner. Until then…cat naps on the train, hopefully that don’t result in me waking up in unknown locations with no cell phone when the station police clear the trains at the end of the night.