Dinant, Belgium: Sax and the City

Giant, colorful saxophones line Dinant's bridge across the Meuse

Dinant, Belgium is situated on the Meuse River, about 68 miles downriver from Maastricht (the Maas changes its name to Meuse when it crosses the Dutch/Belgian border). We stopped in Dinant on our way back from Brussels. To our surprise, the city was filled with saxophones! We passed a saxophone fountain on our way in, and parked near the main bridge that crosses the Meuse. Giant colorful saxophones lined the pedestrian walks on the bridge. 

Saxophones dance above Dinant

Above our heads, strung across the streets, were the most unusual Christmas decorations…saxophones! 

Saxophone Couque de Dinant

On Dinant's Rue Grande is an old bakery that sells sweet biscuits that the city is famous for: Couques de Dinant. Couques are traditionally molded into a variety of forms: animals, flowers, people…and saxophones! Maison Collard has been making these extremely hard honey-and-flour biscuits since 1774 (they are the hardest biscuits in Europe). In the back of the store there's a small museum dedicated to explaining the history and production of Couques de Dinant. 

The cookies come with a warning: customers are advised not to bite into them without first dipping the cookies in coffee, tea, or hot chocolate to soften them.





Why are Couques de Dinant so hard? One local story is that the citizens of Dinant didn't get along with their neighbors in Bouvignes (the next village). When disputes erupted the people of Dinant would throw their stale, hard bread and biscuits at the people of Bouvignes. To improve their weapon of choice, they created this special, very hard biscuit...to inflict more pain. 

You gotta love the Belgians. They come up with the best stories to explain the things they're famous for. 

A wide variety of Couques de Dinant to eat…or to hurl at your enemies

OK...so why are there all those saxophones in Dinant? It's because the saxophone was invented by one of Dinant's citizens-  Monsieur Sax. 

La Maison de Monsieur Sax

Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant in 1814. His father was an instrument designer who had some success making changes to the French Horn. By age 15 Adolphe was designing musical instruments, too. When he was 24 he patented an important improvement to the bass clarinet design. In 1841 he moved to Paris and worked on a new set of instruments there, including a family of saxhorns, the clarinet-bourdon, and the instrument he is most well known for, the saxophone (patented in 1846).

The house where Adolphe lived in Dinant is gone, but an "interpretive center" called La Maison de Monsieur Sax that tells about his life and work stands in its place. There are examples of his musical inventions- with sound effects! You can make a "virtual visit" to this cool little place by clicking on this link: 
http://www.visit-360.net/visites/maisonsax/virtualtour.html

If you'd like to have your picture taken with Monsieur Sax, you can snuggle up to a bronze statue of him that sits on a bench in front of La Maison de Monsieur Sax (he's holding a saxophone, of course).

                                                                 Collegiale Notre Dame's 15th century stained glass

If you visit this nice little city there's lots more to see and do. Dinant has a lovely 13th century Gothic church, Collegiale Notre Dame (Church of Our Lady). Wonderful church treasures are on display in its dark, rough stone interior. Its stained glass windows are some of the most beautiful we've seen in our travels. 

Dinant's Citadel on a cliff above La Collegiale Notre Dame

Dinant is a long, narrow city, built below the soaring cliffs that border the Meuse. A Citadel sits on top, overlooking the river. The city's téléphérique (cable car) will take you to the top for a spectacular view of the city and river. Or you can climb the 408 steep steps to get there, if you're feeling energetic. It was raining hard the day we stopped in Dinant, so we skipped a trip to the top of the cliff.

Le Winston, a place to buy delicious frites

Instead, we found a great little friterie close to the river, near where we parked the car. We knew the pommes frites would be good, because Dinant is in the heart of the area where pommes frites were supposedly invented. The frites that we bought at Le Winston were THE BEST frites we've eaten during our European adventure. If you're ever in the neighborhood, be sure to stop in at Le Winston for a cornet de frites, with a hefty dollop of mayo.