LandScope: Travel Diary of An Explorer: Dinant

“Divo-Nanto” – Sacred Valley, DINANT, NAMUR

By zerrinhosgor - 12/18/2009 06:21:00 AM

Here was a really "Sacred Valley"

When we departed from autobahn to the local roads of Dinant, I hadn’t guessed to face with such a beautiful city. City was located in lower side of the area and we were driving to downward. When you enter the city, lots of old and traditional houses welcome you and city seems such a ghost town. I think it is related with the small population of the city. The upper parts of the city were not crowded so much and when you go down to the city center, you can see most of people strolling around.

When I saw the river, I was a little bit surprised because I hadn’t expected to see a water channel. You feel that you are in a small city with only some houses and shops located on both sides of narrow streets. City gives you that feeling while you walk in narrow and old streets. But these streets lead you to the large open area and“sacred river” at the end of them. Being surprised is a result of this unexpected atmosphere. When you reach to the “Sacred river", you really feel that you are in a different world. Streets lying near the river were full of cafes and restaurants . There were lots of people eating there.

I was looking at the river and cross side of it and after I decided to take a photo, I turned my back to the river and I saw the huge rock and a castle at the top of it and Notre-Dame cathedral in front of the huge rock. It was the famous citadel. I hadn’t heard about the city and citadel before I visited here, so discovering such a great area excited me so much. We decided to climb the citadel, but there were 408 steps and we thought that it can tire us out. And we took the elevator to climb the citadel. The view from the elevator was also great. After we climbed, we watched the perfect landscape of the city, its old and traditional buildings, streets, river and green areas.

View from fortress

The city’s name comes from the Celtic word “Divo-Nanto”, meaning “Sacred Valley”. The name of Dinant was first recorded about 800 BC. But in this period the citadel hadn’t came into being. The first fortress was built toward 1040 and the first bridge round about 1080. The town was destroyed most of times, but it has survived until the present day. The town was occupied by Louis XIV from 1675 to 1698, when the castle was given a major facelift under the supervision of the French military engineer “Vauban”. From 1818 to 1821, the castle was once again destroyed and then rebuilt by the Dutch to produce the Citadel we know today.

In the castle there is a central courtyard where you can see cannonballs and a cafe. We hadn’t more time to visit the castle but if we hadn’t done it, we couldn’t learn about more places to see. In the corridors of the time,there were three rooms recalling milestones in the history of the Dinant Citadel. There were dungeons where you can visit the prisoners’cell, the guardroom and the torture room.

The guard room

Torture room

After visiting that part, we went to the splendid view point. This strategic position, 100 m above the Meuse river, is the fortress look-out point. The view of the city was great.

Meuse river

Then we continued to the tour in castle and we saw some places where you can see three scenes from life as it used to be in 1820s – a forge, kitchens and a bakery from 1820s-.

Castle

Castle kitchen

Castle bakery

The most interesting part of the castle was collapsed shelter cave. You lose your balance and try to stay on course. We had a dizziness while we were passing from this part. It was so interesting. After this nice tour in citadel, we discovered the city. You feel like you are in a mystic place and streets and houses give you that feelings. There were lots of people on streets and you really feel that you are in a sacred town far far away.