Return To Belgium

From Luxembourg, I worked my way north into Belgium travelling first to Namur, a city with a working class feel. A small market was set up outside the train station and there I bought a really big meatball in a tomato based sauce and a slab of cheese, bright green from basil. A woman found me sitting in a park with a map, plunked herself down beside me and cheerfully told me where I should go and how to get there. A young teacher invited me to visit her class where her students were working on a ceramics project. Namur had museums, a cathedral, a casino with pleasure boats waiting in the river nearby, yet it was not the city itself that I remember best but the people within it. . One side of the river.. and the otehr. The reason I chose Namur was that I hoped it would be a good jumping off place for the Grote du Han cavern. As luck would have it my chosen day fell on a monthly strike day protesting government cutbacks. I was informed in great detail how unreliable transportation would be, how many changes I woud need to make and maybe the trains would run but one could not be to certain. I did not see the cave. Instead I opted for a short bus ride to the town of Dinant. Our bus took a route along the river lined by so many gabled and turreted mansions and a couple towns more modern, even suburban. The river Meuse divides Dinant, a rock face is at its back and a small citadel stands guard above it. The citadel is now a museum all about the horrors of the German occupation that reduced a good third of the town to rubble. Fortunately, when reconstruction began they chose to rebuild as it was before the war and it is charming. But, really, Dinant is all about the saxaphone which was developed by none other than Mr. Sax, one of their own. Other towns commemorate war heroes and political figures but not Dinant. I saw sax statues, sax murals, saxes strung across streets, gaily decorated saxes that span the river, even a modern stone nude with a sax worked in. My next stop was Mons in hopes of finding my way to the nearby ancient flint mines of Spiennes. Once again I struck out because of public transportation. I wandered into the old town sector of Mons which was actually quite pretty. In the large square the DouDou festival was being set up yet I would not stay for. It is a tradition that begins in the church, then a procession carries the image of their patron saint through the streets. In the end, a paper mache dragon is carried by men in white, men in black, men in green ivy who do battle and slay it accompanied by the roar of an approving crowd. All the while copious amounts of beer are consumed. The day I was there the local school children performed their version which was enough fun to justify my visit.