It was another busy week in the Belgian Wilkerson home. Class and work are making Monday through Friday fly by. On Saturday, we took advantage of the "good" weather (read: not freezing and raining) to take a day trip to Dinant. This picturesque city is in the Wallonia (French-speaking) region of Belgium. It was about a two hour car drive including an unanticipated detour through the Brussels' suburbs. Dinant is known for its Citadel sitting atop a cliff over-looking the Meuse River, its cathedral with onion-shaped steeple, and for being the home of Adolphe Sax. That's right, the saxophone was invented in this Belgian town. They have turned the inventor's house into a quick walk through exhibit that tells the story of his life and creations. It is a nice little diversion and was very interesting to learn how this one mind shaped many of the instruments and tones still common in today's concert halls. They have also used the sax as a theme all over the city, with uniquely painted versions along the sidewalks.
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| Adolphe Sax |
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| One of the first ever created saxophones |
The Collegiate Church of Our Lady was what we expected: a big church in the middle of town with interesting architecture, beautiful stained-glass, and a long history. This particular church was destroyed twice over the course of time, but still remains on its original foundations. From there, we continued our quest to climb all tall things in Europe and proceeded up the about 500 steps on the side of the cliff to the Citadel. We had missed the timing for the free guided tour so we poked around on our own. This castle/fort has been around for a long time and really only its lower walls remain today. The presentations in the museum focused on the events this fort was central to during WWI. It was a particularity nasty fight, with many citizens getting caught in the crossfire. While the facts were informative, the presentation was a bit too artsy for our taste (they had made one room of the fort completely dark excepted for a wandering and randomly flashing spot light that was supposed to simulate the experience of the WWI battle).
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| Inside the church |
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| The city of Dinant |
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| Ready for more steps |
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| From the citadel |
Rather than descending the 500 steps, we took the cable car back down for a much quicker return. We stopped into a patisserie to buy the local cookie/biscuit specialty, couqes de Dinant. The internet had informed us that it was a hard biscuit with a honey-sweetened flavor. The cookie is imprinted with a carved wooden molding before baking. The instructions for consumption were not to bite the cookie, but to break of pieces and let it melt slowly in your mouth before chewing. Sounds interesting, but it's a honey flavored cookie, so what could go wrong? Well, a lot apparently. The cookie was nearly impossible to break into pieces. Once that was accomplished, it tasted terrible and spongy. We definitely do not recommend this delicacy if traveling to Dinant. We have some cookie left and it is good until mid 2016 if any future visitors want a sample! After the cookie disaster, we decided to call it a day and head home before the darkness set in. We really enjoyed Dinant and our first real adventure into the French speaking part of Belgium. We will be headed back to that region soon for more adventures.
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| The cookie |
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| The cookie after. We didn't eat much.... |
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| It was a tight squeeze! |
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