Posted By Laura in #New!, advent, Competitions, Family Friendly Holidays, Travel | 2 comments

“While sheeeeephards watched their flocks by night…”

Behind door number twenty three of the 2017 #LittleStuff24 is an amazing family stay in the beautiful Dinant in Belgium – including a two-night hotel stay for four, plus a brill Molignée Rail Bikes experience!

Doesn’t Dinant look beautiful?
I’ll be honest – it’s not a town I’d ever heard of (to be fair, I’m not massively familiar with Belgium at all. Silly me.). But one look at this picture and it’s immediately on my ‘To Visit Next Year’ list. How could you not want to visit this place?

Apparently, in the past, Dinant could only be reached by boat: on one side of the river, the astonishing (and impossible) Bayard rock hangs over the water and completely blocked all land access. On the other side of the river, there was a leper-house.

But that’s all changed today: a beautiful bridge spans the river Meuse, and the roads allow easy access to this treasure in the heart of Wallonia.

You can take a cable-car up to the Citadelle – allowing stunning views across the Meuse – and in the valleys surrounding the city there’s an impressive array of castles and abbeys, eclectic museums, and caves. Plus, of course, any tourist needs to try the excellent local beers from the artisan breweries!

And we’re absolutely thrilled to be working with the Wallonia Tourist Board to offer you the chance to win a family short stay in Dinant so you can explore and enjoy one of Wallonia’s best little gems. You’ll need to find your way there (you can fly to Brussels, or it’s only a 3hr drive from Calais, and the return trip through channel tunnel is around £100), but you’ll receive 2 nights’ accommodation for 4 people in the Ibis Dinant, which is ideally located on the Meuse, by Dinant’s casino, and just five minutes from the town centre.

You’ll also receive tickets for a Draisines of the Molignée experience; the ‘rail-biking’ involves pedalling along railway lines for fun. Happily, there are no oncoming trains to encounter because rail-biking takes place on disused lines, with purpose-built open wagons that can be pedalled by families or groups of up to four along several kilometres of disused track. There’s a beautiful 4km riverside section near Dinant, and another 7km of track in the wild Hautes Fagnes in the Ardennes, where you pedal from one disused station to another: two in the front doing the hard work on the way there; two in the back admiring the scenery. Then you change places for the return journey, with the whole excursion taking about three hours.

So – how to win that fabulous short break, worth around £270?
It’s simples; just answer the first two questions in the widget box below. There are more chances to win by completing the other entry options if you so wish – they’re entirely up to you! The closing date for this competition is 28th January 2017 and only entries received on or before that date can be included. The winner will be the first randomly chosen entry. Good luck!
LS24/23 – Wallonia