Usually when I visit a new country, I try to find a city or town that isn’t too touristy to visit to try to get a different vibe from the country. For Belgium, I decided on Dinant, as it seemed really cute and really laid back. I also found that Dinant wasn’t too far from the country, Luxembourg, so I decided to add another country to the agenda.
DINANT
Dinant is a little more than an hour drive from Brussels/Bruges so I figured it was a manageable drive. Belgium in general is a pretty small country so pretty easy to explore a lot of cities/towns. Dinant is a beautiful little place, located on the River Meuse with stunning views. I really loved visiting Dinant and so glad I made sure to visit.
Its most known for the Citadelle de Dinant, an 1815 fortress sitting on top a stone cliff. You can either walk up the 400 steps or take the furnicular to the top. The biggest historical event here was a huge battle between French and German troops. During the German invasion on Belgium during World War I, German troops captured the Citadel in 1914 and killed the people of Belgium while battling the French. You can see different weapons used when visiting the citadel as well as witness different bullet holes and see the tiny little holes where troops would hide and shoot their weapons.
Dinant is also known to be the birthplace of Saxophone creator Adolphe Sax and the town has painted saxophones lining the bridge in his honor.
I also had the best mussels in my whole life here at Chez Bouboule. The beer was amazing, too, as well as the view.
I also really liked our hotel, Hotel Ibis Dinant. The breakfast was great, although not included, the hotel was in a great location and had a great view. The rooms were a little bit small, however.
LUXEMBOURG
We were a little ambitious with our visit to Luxembourg in deciding to drive there from Dinant and then head all the way to Bruges after Luxembourg. As we were coming back, there was literally a tornado so that may have been why the drive felt so long, but I would still recommend staying around Luxembourg after spending the day there. Its really expensive to stay in Luxembourg so it might be better to stay another day in Dinant or somewhere else in Belgium right outside Luxembourg.
Luxembourg has more than 100 castles in its small country so you could spend days exploring castles. I decided to visit the Vianden Castle since the pictures were so beautiful but also really wanted to visit the castle ruins of Beaufort. The Vianden Castle was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries and is one of the largest fortified castles west of the Rhine River.
The castle is located about 45 minutes from the main city, but worth visiting for sure. Because of the detour, though, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend in the city. I underestimated how big Luxembourg city is so it took us awhile to navigate through the city and find parking. We made it to Casemates du Bock which is a fortress first built in 963. Later on in 1933, it was used as a bomb shelter during WWII for 35,000 people. You can walk all the way down and explore the tunnels but we didn’t have time.
We also checked out Chemin de la Corniche, also called “the most beautiful balcony of Europe,” which was built by the French and Spanish in seventeenth century and definitely had some great views.
My itinerary details some other things worth doing in Luxembourg, but we wanted to get back to Bruges before dark so we headed back. Really glad I saw Luxembourg and Dinant during this trip, though. I still have several domestic locations I visited this year that I haven’t updated yet including Vermont, Utah, Colorado, Florida, and Minnesota. I probably won’t have time to update though before my big trip to Chile and Antarctica in January.
