Meuse in late October

Meuse in late October

Meuse in late October(Meuse Valley day-trip, 1990s)


I leave the orchard roads of Molenbeek‑Wersbeek with the smell of wet leaves clinging to my coat, tyres humming along the E40, past fields already leaning toward winter, past barns that seem to breathe at their own slow pace.
                          Hannut is a pause of cobbled streets, a café window misted from the inside, the hiss of an espresso machine, and the soft murmur of market sellers blending with the smell of fresh bread.
           Back on the road, Namur rises like a meeting of stone and water — the Sambre folding into the Meuse, arched bridges like the backs of sleeping cats, citadel walls that seem to have carried their weight for centuries. I stop for a moment on the riverbank, watching the current carry leaves downstream as if the Meuse were repeating the same journey.
                          The valley narrows. The cliffs lean in, their limestone faces streaked with rust and moss, and the river carries a bronze light older than the towns it touches.
                                   Dinant appears suddenly — a church dome cradled in the rock’s palm, the citadel watching with patient stone eyes. I cross the bridge, the Meuse passing below like a thought I can’t quite finish.
             Lunch is bread still warm enough to steam my fingers, beer the colour of late afternoon, and the sound of barges gliding past as if they had a gentler appointment to keep.
                                                               In the cable car, the town falls away into a patchwork of roofs, and the river becomes a ribbon tying this day to other autumns I have carried in my heart.
                                                                                   In the evening I drive north again, headlights catching the edges of fallen leaves, the map folded on the passenger seat like a letter I will never send.




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