Dinant Attractions

From the time of the Hohenstaufen dynasty the town belonged to the diocese of Liège and was highly prosperous as early as the 13th-15th C. It was famous throughout the Middle Ages for its brass and copper ware, the so-called dinanderies.

Unlike any other town in Belgium Dinant has been destroyed by war throughout its history. The town was conquered and burnt by Charles the Bold in 1466; Philip the Good had 800 townspeople tied together in pairs and drowned in the Meuse. In 1554 the French laid siege to the town and destroyed it; under Louis XIV they conquered the town and fortress, occupying it until 1703.

In the First World War Dinant was an important bridgehead on the Meuse and, therefore, the focus of heavy fighting, in which 674 of its citizens lost their lives. In the Second World War the Meuse Bridge was bombed in the 1940 air raids and the town suffered heavy damage in 1944, so that hardly anything remains of old Dinant.