To our huge annoyance, the bike rental shop at the trains station is not open on Saturday or Sunday (typical Belgium), so we hike south past the city citadel to rent from another bike shop. In Holland the bike rental places were quick, offered good bikes, and were cheap. This place is the opposite of all three. Having sat around for over 30 minutes we finally leave with our “velo d’occassion”, a rusty red piece of crap with slippery handlebars and no shock absorbers. Still we’re off.
Our first snag comes only a couple kilometres outside Namur, we realize we are on the wrong side of the river and have to double back nearly the entire distance to cross the bridge to resume on the right side. Dinant is only 27km away from Namur, but on our slow bikes and on occasionally hellish cobble paths our progress is less than spectacular. The path follows the river, making the guidebook slightly redundant, but it is fun to track our progress. We stop at a booth at Profondeville to buy artisinale strawberries and then in Godine to have some lunch by the river. We pass all the sights of the trail including the castles and large manor homes, the houses sitting at the foot of the cliffs or on top of them, a horse drawn wedding carriage, the various lockes and the boats chugging upstream, and a bridge with the guardrails broken where a car fell into the meuse.
The day is getting on and we realize that our time in Dinant will be very short. Cycling back is out of the question so we buy some train tickets and then power trip into the town. The first sight is the huge citadel that sits above the entire town. We take a gondola up and take in the views. Aside from having a high vantage point there’s little else to see, a free tour does take people about but it is 70 minutes in length and we are time pressed as it is. So we descend and enter the church at the foot of the cliff. As we walk about we do a quick circuit of the town, and observe a group of men in matching cyclist outfits enjoying some beers in the sun, the same men who sped past us miles back. A quick glance at my watch tells me we’re already late and we cycle down to the station. I don’t know where to put my bike so I just take it on the train, a mistake since it crowds the corridor. The bikes are due back sharply at 5 and our train arrives exactly then. I’m worried about the shop closing and being stuck with nowhere to put the bikes and a large bill. So we begin to cycle from the station, but Namur is in the midst of a weekend festival and everywhere is blocked by ambling people, and idiot parents who drive their strollers right in front of me. We manage to finally make it to the shop and drop off our gear. Feeling peckish and deserving of our reward, we buy chocolate covered coffee ice cream bars from a grocery store and have them on a bench outside.
The next destination is the Namur citadel, something I had seen on my previous visit to Namur but which I couldn’t explore too fully because my flatmates wanted to get back to Brussels. We walk to the top of the citadel and follow its path to mansion home at the rear, past what must have once been a parade ground. At the back of the hill we enter an ancient-greek style outdoor theatre, rows of stone seats arrange in a semi arc. My first step into the place is on a muddy puddle making a loud splash, prompting a groan, a laugh, and an applause from a group of people above. I take a moment to bow and we walk on. It is at this point that we get rather lost and attempt to circle back through the woods, winding up on a very slippery and muddy hillside, descending by grabbing trees on the way down. We finally make our way to the side of the citadel which is virtually empty, and we cross up through the drawbridge back to the main ramps.
On this particular weekend Namur is having a springfest, and we have noticed street performers here and there. Having finished our meal we wander off to first watch a puppet show. What attracted me most was the set, an old and likely authentic travelling puppet stage, an antique with incredible details and craftsmanship. The entire carriage is an antique with wood crafted figures in the sides painted in gold, large painted doors and red velvet curtains. This along with the other props stirs my imagination and keeps Tatevik and I standing and waiting for the show finally to begin. Unfortunately the actors lack both talent and enthusiasm, and the brief introduction of the show is full of moments when the audience ought to be applauding but instead one hears polite clapping mostly to cover a measure of embarrassment.
Being both exhausted and sweaty I lead Tatevik to a restaurant that I had discovered on my previous visit with my flatmates. The Maman Gourmandise sits in a pedestrian alley opposite the Papa Gourmandise, a restaurant with a striking similarity to the Pain Quotidien in Brussels, it offers us some tasty salads and some rosé to match our new super healthy lifestyles. After dinner we wander on to watch the Johnny Show. The show consists of acrobatics performed by a woman comically being spun inside and outside of a giant spinning clock. While repetitive it is quite talented and we watch it from beginning to end. Our vantage point being just behind the clock where we watch the actresses’ collaborator quickly arrange a series of cranks and spins and musical numbers to make the appearance from the front seem flawless.
While we could return to the station to catch the train we opt to wait an hour and catch the next one to enjoy the town some more. We wander towards a large beer garden with a tent marked Cabaret. Inside we see a stage and ventriloquist, its at this point that the affairs becomes a little bit trippy, done up in the style of century old carnivals. We order a couple drinks and sit at a table next to an enormous funhouse mirror, distorting us into midgets. Tatevik sips a bright red and fruity kriek while I stick with one of the countless beers whose name I will never remember.Leaving the beer garden we walk along the street and finally come across the walking dinosaurs. Three street actors in the most incredible costumes. They walk in stilts and are inside dinosaur outfits, their heads being placed roughly below the dinosaurs’ necks. The dinosaurs are perhaps 15 feet tall, and they have large bobbing heads at the top of a long neck controlled by hidden wires. The actors inside can raise and lower the necks, and executing this action quickly causes the dinosaur’s jaw to clap. The eyes glisten like jewels and the costume is richly textured and decorated. Inside each dinosaur outfit is also a speaker system so that the tree dinos play an odd music synchronized, combined with the occasional dinosaur call which sounds like a cross between a bird and a whale call.
We follow the dinosaurs for a bit, and at one point one turns on us to snap its jaws, giving Tatevik a bit of a stir. We could have followed them for longer however we are pressing our luck with the trains, and so we walk back to the Namur station. Upon arriving there we know that there ought to be a train coming, but there is none listed. At the time where our train ought to arrive there is a train to Luxembourg, the opposite direction. Adding to this confusion is that there are 2 display boards in the station. One of them illustrates a daily schedule, which indeed confirms at least 2 more trains due for Brussels. The other illustrates trains actually in the station and those scheduled to arrive, and that one only shows 2 trains docked in that station that night due to leave, but neither to Brussels. The train to Luxembourg arrives and we see a dozen people run up the stairs and head to the train for Chareloi, due to leave in a few moments. Charleloi is another town south where an airport is located, and I’m tempted to head there since I feel it would likely be easier to get back to Brussels. We head down to the Luxembourg platform and finally find a station worker who tells us that there’s no more trains to Brussels that night, I hurriedly ask him if we can take the train to Charleloi to get home and he says yes, but that it leaves in a minute. We run for our dear lives up the stairs and down the station, desperate not to get stuck in Namur. We board the train and make it to Charleloi. True to his word, there is a final train going to Brussels, a slow one that stops at every station on the rout which takes us hours to get us home. We arrive past the last metros and so we walk from the Gare Central back to my flat, well exercised to say the least.
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