The last Sunday before Christmas, Lars, Vanessa Morgan and I decided to visit Dinant, a beautiful town in the French-speaking part of Belgium. But things didn’t go as planned…
Problem number 1. There is no direct train between Brussels and Dinant. The only solution is a two-hour train-trip with lots of stops, something I wasn’t aware of when I bought the tickets.
Problem number 2. I had skipped breakfast that morning because I wasn’t feeling hungry and I thought we would be in Dinant very quickly, so I would grab a croissant in a bakery. But after the long train-trip I was actually starving.
Problem number 3. When I am very hungry and I can’t eat very soon, I become very grumpy and disagreeable. I am certainly aware of this and I am not proud of it.
Problem number 4. When we finally arrived in Dinant around 11 am, it took us more than half an hour to find a place to eat. Snack-bars were closed and most restaurants apparently serve hot food starting from noon only. I felt my blood-sugar going down and the troll in me was manifesting itself to the fullest.
Problem number 5. When I had finally eaten and had become my old self again, we decided to visit the Christmas market. Very quick visit indeed, since of the 10 (!) stalls, only half of them were open. And not the most interesting ones… Dinant is not actually a small town, so this Christmas market was a huge letdown.
Problem number 6. Miss Morgan wanted to buy the famous “Couque de Dinant” (Cake of Dinant). We had found a bakery who sold them, but Vanessa didm’t like their “Couques”; they were ugly and the wrong shape and size. So, we had to find another shop… And I hate shopping… But we did find them at last!
Problem number 7. It was very misty and the mist simply didn’t want to disappear. The weather conditions turned Dinant to the least photogenic place ever. Going up to the citadel and admiring and photographing the view was out of the question.
Problem number 8. We returned to the station quite frustrated, only to find out that our train to Brussels was limited to Namur, where we had to wait half an hour in the freezing cold for a train to Brussels. Why is every train station in Belgium so bloody cold?!?
Problem number 9. You are never going to be believe this… All the pictures I had taken that day had become corrupt!!!!! Can’t edit them, can’t put them on the website!!!
But…
- We can always go back, preferably in Spring or Summer when there is more to do and see in Dinant. So stay tuned!
- I do have a video of Lars trying to eat the (in)famous “Couque de Dinant”. They are made with only two ingredients, honey and wheat flour and they are extremely hard. As you can see for yourself in the video…