Today we crossed the border between Luxembourg and Belgium meaning that on this trip I’ve crossed into every country that Luxembourg borders. As I was looking for places to visit on way home it wasn’t as easy as looking for the capital cities or famous landmarks but Dinant looked like a very pretty town and they had a beer museum which I knew Al would enjoy.

There was a time pre kids where we did loads of beer tours and it became a bit of an inside joke between us when they asked what the four main ingredients in beer were since we’d heard this many times.

It has been a while though and the tasting has always been different. This beer tour was at Leffe (which turns out we’ve been saying it wrong this whole time) and it was actually very different to previous tours that walk you around the factory and the brewing process. This used interactive screens to tell you about the history of the process, information about the monks that started the brewery, the tools that used to be used and what flavours went into each of the different versions they sell. There were also sections about how to pour the perfect beer, depending on the type and the various glasses that should be used. It was a nice change to the usual tours and it kept the kids entered too. It was also inside a beautiful building with tall ceilings asks stain glass windows.

After the tour we got to do a tasting, unfortunately the one from the information boards that sounded the nicest was no longer made or sold but we went for the tripel which is double fermented, the second time being after the bottling process.

I’m not usually a beer drinker so I chose a different bottle for Al to enjoy later but actually the tripel was quite refreshing whilst enjoying the beautiful views. Al did say it was a sweet beer so that probably helped. We bought a couple to enjoy later so let’s hope without the view and sunshine I still enjoy it.

After the beer we went to get more real Belgium fries, these were actually much better than the ones we had a month ago in Bruges at the fries museum.

The other item on my list was to visit the saxophone museum, I didn’t know why it was constantly coming up in my searches for things to do in Dinant but it turns out the man who invented the saxophone did so here. They are really making a big thing of it as well, shops named after saxophone puns, pictures and several sculptures.

Calling it a museum was a bit of a stretch though, it was a single room (on the same street he was born as the original house had burnt down twice) and had a few facts, we actually learnt more about him in one of the videos at the Leffe museum.

After this we visited the cathedral, we chose a good time as the organ was playing and accompanied by someone playing a trumpet.

With a couple of hours left we had a choice between a boat ride or the citadel and we chose the latter.

You could either wait for the cable car or walk the 408 steps, Robert wanted to walk so Al had the pleasure of going with him whilst Liliya and I went in the cable car.

The citadel was a nice way to spend some time, amazing views from the top and just the right amount of information about the history of the place to keep it interesting without feeling overloaded.

The strangest part of the visit was entering into a basement made up to feel like a collapsed war bunker.

We all headed back down in the cable car and had just enough time for Al to go beer shopping, as tonight is our final sleep in the van we can actually start to load it up with things to take home. He doesn’t go too overboard, we won’t be near the 84 litres we’re allowed to bring back 😂.

Our final campsite is on a Belgium farm. There are only spots for 3 vans and it’s very remote.

I’m not sure if my French or her English is better but we fumble along half and half to get acquainted. It’s a cute place with local products to buy so we get some of the chicken sausages made here to go in our pasta.

I haven’t got much time to run whilst Al is cooking but I manage to fit in a mile completing all the countries I can which to say I couldn’t walk before starting the trip so I missed some of the earlier days I’m happy the only country I didn’t get to run in was the Netherlands.