Thursday 24 July 2014

Dinant Citadel

Totally stationary

Today was a tourist day.  We took the short walk into Dinant centre and decided the Citadel would be our visit of choice.

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Not before though we visited the Church Of Our Lady.  As much as I hate religion it has been the driving force to some really great buildings over the century's.

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Church & Citadel above

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Vivid colours in the stained glass window

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Then on to the Citadel, 400+ steps or cable car?  Yes you’ve guessed it. Once at the top we got bamboozled for a photo, and on exit she was most indignant we didn’t want to even look.  Why would we?  A nice Chinese family reciprocated our offer to photo them with our camera. 

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Of course being this high gives great views of the town.

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Panaroma

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We are moored just around the left curve

Once inside the Citadel we tagged on to a tour in Dutch.  We couldn't understand what he was saying but the rest of crowd were clearly captivated.  It was just as well we did tag on as the bulk of the attraction is roped off the the independent visitor.

Being a Citadel the was the normal barracks and torture & execution stuff on show.

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By far the most weird part was the WW1 trench exhibition.  I wondered initially why they could get away with this sign.

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But it soon became clear.  The exit was the most strange experience ever.  I really don’t know how Deb did this with her vertigo, even I was well disorientated.

It’s hare to explain. but there is not a vertical or horizontal surface in the area. but at the bottom there is a pool of water that look to be hanging at about 20 degrees.  Its very disorientating.  My camera has an artificial horizon and this was taken level.

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This was taken with my perceived level

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Photos don’t really catch it.

After a spot of lunch we took the opportunity to take photos on the Charles De Gaul bridge.  Sorry about the over exposure.

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Why the saxophone's?  Well Dinant is the birthplace of Adolph Sax the inventor of the Saxophone.

On the walk back we came across the Sax Museum with a great glass sculpture of a …………. Saxophone.

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Once back on Avalon I decided to fit the 12v Ceiling fan I bought for the bedroom.

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Remote control, 3 speed and revisable

I found this on eBay but only available from America.  Its very quiet even on full speed.  It will be tested tonight. I will be changing the colour of the blades.

This is our mooring in the daylight.

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We will be moving off in the mooring heading towards Givet.

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