Walloons live in Wallonia, which is the southern, French-speaking half of Belgium. We live just a couple of miles from the language border in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part, where the Flemish live. By the way, Belgians are not Dutch, who live in The Netherlands, which some call Holland. But Holland is really just a province (or two). And the Dutch don't like the American idiom "going Dutch" because it makes them sound cheap. Ditto for "Dutch courage."
Dinant and Bouillon
Both very pretty and picturesque towns on major rivers (now used for fly fishing and kayaking) which were important strategic locations in the Middle Ages. Very violent past. Charles called "The Bold" invaded at some point long ago (dates become a blur) and tied all the men together in twos and threw them off the bridge. Germans in WW I invaded and simply executed about 700. The town of Dinant is built on a narrow spit of land between the Meuse River and a really high cliff dominated by a huge citadel. The highlight here was really the modern kids' playground. And, we got foot-long sandwiches for $4.50 which is a real deal.
Dinant, impressive church and fortress on the hill
Views from the hill top fortress
Bouillon is famous as the home chateau of Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader in the First Crusade (he financed an army of 8,000) and “First Protector of the Holy Sepulcher” or King of Jerusalem after the city was taken in 1099. He was later idealized as the perfect flower of chivalry. The castle is “kijk-cool” as Jesse would say. Very authentically medieval (low ceilings, rough-hewn rock) with far fewer modern additions than you usually find. There was a falconer there that day and his show was interesting enough (with falcons, owls, a huge condor) that we stood in the freezing rain to watch. On the way home our GPS took us on a shortcut of some kind that ended up as a dirt road, going who knows where. In the mud and rain and no 4-wheel drive, we felt not too adventurous and so didn’t take her advice (“recalculating...make a U turn whenever possible...recalculating...”).
Castle at Bouillon
Jack pretending to be locked up at the castle
View as we drove away - you can see why several attacks failed to take this stronghold
