Citadels & Sax

Charles de Gaulle and the Citadel of Dinant

After our bike ride with Ingrid on Saturday afternoon, we weren't ready for a large meal, so at dinner time we went around the corner from our hotel to Chez Vincent, where we had some takeout fries, burgers and chicken fingers, spending our last evening in Bruges at a table in the shadow of the cathedral.

Calvary Chapel in Oostende, Belgium

Sunday morning we had breakfast a little early so we could make it to Calvary Chapel in Oostende, named De Pelgrim. The manager of the B&B drove us to the train station and Ingrid picked us up when we arrived in Oostende (on the coast about 20 minutes from Bruges).

Will Hoc Preaching and Ingrid Translating

Unlike many smaller churches, De Pilgrim owns their own church building, a former theater. There is really a lot of room for expansion, and the church is growing. Will Hoc, the pastor, is from the Wallonian part of Belgium and speaks French and English; he preaches in English, and another church member simultaneously translates into Flemish. This Sunday, it was Ingrid, who had picked us up from the train station and had also taken us on a bike ride yesterday.

Praying for the Fathers

Since it was Father's Day in Belgium (a week earlier than in the States this year), Will had all of the fathers in the church come forward, and he prayed for them.

Lunch with the Hocs

After the service, Will drove us back to his neighborhood in Brussels (About an hour and a half drive when there's no traffic!), where we had lunch with his wife Abigail and his daughter Elizabeth. One of our favorite things about traveling is meeting and spending time with those who are serving the Lord overseas. Will and Abigail met at the Calvary Chapel Bible School in York, the same place our son Judah went to school.

After lunch, Will went home with Elizabeth, and, instead of putting us on the train, Abigail drove us to Namur. Namur is the capital of the province of Wallonia, the French speaking eastern half of Belgium. It's also the town that Will grew up in, and where he and Abigail settled when they first moved to Belgium.

The Chateau de Namur

One of the difficulties of planning a trip, especially a trip to locations where the guidebook information is scarce, is trying to picture what things look like on the ground. The hotel I chose in Namur was one of the top-rated hotels on Booking.com. It also looked like it was closer to all of the action than any of the others. The Chateau de Namur is a 4-star hotel (usually we stay in 2 or 3-star places) and it is right on top of the action. Literally. It is about 700 yards from the center of Namur. Straight up.

The Fortress at Koblenz

Kathy says it is higher up than the first place I rented when we started traveling in 2007; a room in the youth hostel in the fortress overlooking Koblenz, Germany. Objectively, I think that both are about the same height, but in any case, the height made it virtually impossible to leave our room on the spur of the moment, and wander around town. The first night we were there, we walked over to the Citadel which shares the top of the hill, and had a nice meal overlooking the city. We also got to Face-time with our daughter Hosanna, and show her the beautiful view.

Top Gate in Namur's Citadel

Two of the printouts I brought with me were bike trips from Namur to a town about 20 miles away on the Meuse River named Dinant. While the weather was good, getting down the hill and to the train station, then renting bikes and going through town to the bike trail along the river, proved to be just too time consuming (to say nothing of a 40-mile bike ride).

Senior-Citizen Discounts

Instead, we walked down exploring the Citadel, then through town to the train station, and took the train to Dinant. The Belgium Senior Ticket meant we could go round-trip for 6.40 Euro.

Ode to Adolfe Sax

Dinant is a very small town (14,000 inhabitants) right on the Meuse River. One of its claims to fame is that it is the home of Adolfe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone (and hundreds of other musical instruments). There are giant saxophone statues all over town along with brass plaques on all of the light posts, describing all of the different kinds of saxophones.

Adlolfe Sax in Front of his Museum

There is even a museum dedicated to his life; he died penniless in Dinant, still trying to enforce the patents he'd been granted on the saxophone. The museum also contained copies of the hundreds of instruments he had created.

Cable Car to Dinant's Citadel

Dinant's second claim to fame is its Citadel. Like the one in Namur, this was also renovated by Louis XIV's military engineer Vauban. Unlike the Citadel in Namur, you can get to this one by a cable-car; which we highly recommend. Since we were the only English-speaking visitors, the lady who ran the visitors center gave us a brochure and let us follow it by ourselves (instead of going on the guided tour).

It was really neat. You see many of the barracks which have been restored as if they were being used. Then, you get to go down into the tunnels inside the fortress. There were sandbags and sound recordings as if the fortress was being attacked. At one point the tunnel floor tilts which is really disconcerting. It looks and sounds very "Pirates of the Caribbean," but it was quite effective.

We didn't get back to Namur until 3:00 PM, which was too late for our first lunch choice. We did find a little organic sandwich shop and had some soup and tartines, which are "fancy French open-faced sandwiches topped with spreadable ingredients."

Afterwards we did some shopping and then tried to catch the bus back to our hotel. We walked halfway across town and waited for a half-hour, only to find that we were on the wrong side of the street. By the time we found the correct bus-stop, waited for the bus, and got dropped of at the hotel, it was about 7:00 PM.

Tomorrow we're heading for Dusseldorf, where we'll catch our plane home on Wednesday. We have to change trains in Liege, so I think we'll see if we can get some of those boulets à la liégeoise again. Yum.