7 Jun 2008

AN EXCURSION TO DINANT

Photo Hunters and Project Blue are here

The city of Waterloo had organized an excursion for it's senior citizen, to Dinant a Walloon city and municipality located on the River Meuse in the Belgian province of Namur. It is a beautiful little town and sticks right away to rocks.





We went by bus and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately the weather was grey so that my pictures look grey too, but the city is really a little jewel. Above you see the boats to take tourists on a roundtrip along the river Meuse.

We then should visit a castle named "chateau de Vêves" from the 16th century




This is a painting of the castle.

But before we went there everybody was thirsty because it was 11 and "apéro" time, which meant an entry in the next café where the seniors enjoyed with pleasure their dark beer or one (etc) glass of white wine.






Here are a few of them. After that of course everybody was even more funny and in that mood we visited the castle, welcomed a smiling owner who still lives in there (amongst other residences)

The castle I will show tomorrow.



After the visit we were again not only thirsty but also hungry and had lunch in Dinant's Casino. This took 2 1/2 h had got his first and second plate, desert and café. We had fresh salmon en croute as a starter, then a Bresse chicken filet (a speciality) with Rösti and vegetables and to finish a "Dame Blanche" (vanille ice cream with chocolate) the whole thing was served with red and white wine which was again very good for the ambiance.

Refreshed and some of us very good mooded we visited this castle, another and the gardens of "Freyr" (the other castle) and were then free for 2 h to visit Dinant until the buses took us back to Waterloo.



And as the weather really wasn't very appealing to walk around we all landed in different pubs or cafés and continued with the marvelous dark (very strong) beer because from all this chatting and laughter our mouths were dry.

The result was some singing going on in the bus and all the sixty, seventy or eightyager had enjoyed the day very much ! As one old gentleman resumed before taking his car : we didn't drink any alcohol only beer and wine. And he is right, in Belgium beer and wine is not an alcohol.

I enjoyed the day very much, although I don't drink beer or wine !

5 comments:

  1. Dear Gattina ~~ Glad you had a great visit to the castle, even on a grey dull day. The photos are good and we feel as though you took us with you. Thank you Gattina. I hope Rainy Belgium has fined up by nor. Glad you liked the "Before I Became a Mom" It
    makes us remember all the hard work in our early days. Take care,
    Love, Merle.

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  2. wow, this is a wonderful trip for the young at heart :) i'm glad your city organizes tours like that, i hope when i grow older our city would organize such wonderful trips for us too. oh and by the way do you have to pay a lot for it? i hope not, because here a lot of the pensioners are complaining about them not having enough pension what with the increasing price of milk and wheat and oil of course!

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  3. Gday Gattina.
    Sounds and looks like you had a wonderfull senior excusion with plenty of laughter,Love all the photo's and waiting to see photo's of the castle..Take care be back soon.
    Our Clubs put on free senior lunches a couple of times a year...

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  4. WHAT? No gambling in the casino??? Ahhhh... looks like you had a good time anyway... but still... I'd have gambled!

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  5. What? You don't drink Beer??? You know it's a funny thing, but my German Grandpa also did not drink either wine or beer. Occasionally he would have a scotch, but mostly he loved a good cold glass of milk!

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