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A château called Dave

— Woodlands, deer and lush meadows above the Meuse in the Province de Namur.”

Since the weather had started to turn much colder in the last week, we chose a walk closer to home in the Province de Namur, not far from a previous outing at Crupet.

Dave is a small riverside village just a few kilometres south of Namur proper, surrounded by lots of those new houses whose peculiarly over-simplified geometry and ill-informed insensitivity to landscape seem to be so popular with Walloons.

Fortunately the older, more original aspects of Dave do much to compensate. The nearby château on the eastern bank of the Meuse is but one example of this charming old village, rebuilt from a medieval ruin in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the Ducs de Fernan Nunez. According to the archives of the New York Times the château played host in 1877 to Louis Napoleon who was there ostensibly to hunt.

Indeed the woodlands above Dave are still today used for hunting. Shooting butts line the Rue de Bois de Dave, which cuts through the biggest section of woodland above the villages of Naninne and Lustin.

• Walking route: Dave – Lustin – Naninne – Dave (loop) detailed commentary
• Distance: 18km
• Route based on original source by Gert Sonck at Originele wandelingen in België with very slight modification

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Dave

Beside the Meuse in the Province de Namur, the little village of Dave and an autumn walk in the woods.

Larger map of this route at GoogleMaps

Detailed commentary

Translated from the original source with slight modifications

1. Walk down the Rue de la Vieille Eglise and take the tunnels under the railway and road. You emerge on the Rue de l’Ecole where you cross and leave the street by a narrow gravel path on the left that runs between gardens (Pre Pîsinte do Cap). As you pass a large house on your right, you turn right following its garden wall onto what is now the Rue de Marchonvaux. Keep going straight between fences passing a house called “Casa” and a bridge over a stream. Keep going until the next bridge and cross it.
2. The path now climbs steeply up to the Rue de l’Ecole again. Cross over going left and almost immediately turn right into the Haie des pauvres until you reach another road, the Rue des Nolettes. Turn right then left almost immediately into the Rue de Freche Terre, which climbs up and out of the village.
3. Pass the last house and follow the forest road as it bends to the left, running along the forest edge. Soon after turn at a right angle into the forest (Rue du Puits) and rises quite steeply to the right, then turn left at a T-junction to continue your climb. When the path levels, you come to a junction of forest roads: go dead straight next to the spruce woodland (the other route is interdit anyway). This grassy path continues 1.2 kilometers long, straight over a crossroads after about halfway until it runs to another T-junction.
4. Turn right here but just a few metres on, leave the road on a narrow forest path at right angles to the left side that runs through deciduous forest before descending to a crossroads. Go straight over and descend sharply through a stream valley until you reach an asphalt path onto which you turn left and then right almost immediately over a bridge.
5. Very shortly after, go left (Rue des Acremonts) and climb to a road junction with the Rue des Fonds. Turn left briefly and just after number 47 – level with the bus stop – turn right onto a narrow gravel path which climbs quite steeply. Cross the road at the top (Rue de Goffioul) and you’ll see a steep path which you climb up through a wood. Eventually reaching a road at the top (Rue Pepin), go straight up through the village of Lustin until, drawing level with the football pitch of AC Lustin, you turn left into the Rue Saint-Roch.
6. Once out of the village, you see a chapel on the right and next to it an asphalt path. Following the Rue d’Arson Voie at a sign for ‘Les Dossias’ turn right onto a track between fields. Just before this track curves to the right and when level with some chalets, you turn left onto a narrow path along the edge of a field that descends through a large meadow. At the end of the meadow the trail drops again through woodland before coming at last to a road (Rue du Bois d’Arche) which you follow right.
7. By the gate of a driveway that runs to a new house on the left, the road becomes a track. Continue down through the apple orchard until the road forks: take the narrow path on the left that runs beside a farm property and enter the woodlands once more running roughly parallel to a stream. Eventually the road becomes more like a grassy path and ends at a T-junction.
8. Turn left then turn left again onto a narrower path just before the gateposts. This path rises steeply through the broader forest before joining a wider track, which you follow until you reach the cemetery at Sart-Bernard. Here, cross the Rue Saint-Denys and head down a narrow driveway almost exactly opposite. At house number 90, turn right onto a grassy path that leads to the Rue Morimont into which you turn left. At the end of this road turn right but immediately turn left onto a narrow grassy path up through the pasture. Keep going until you reach a road. Ahead and slightly to the left as you leave the pasture, you enter the Bois Naquion. Look out for posters warning of hunting season in autumn. Go straight through the woodland until you start clearly to see fields on the right through the trees. When on the left the trees suddenly thin out for a short gap, look out for an unmarked but clearly defined path at right angles on the right side of the track. This path runs only a few metres before coming out of the forest and onto a descending, grassy path with Naninne across the valley in the distance.
9. Reaching the first houses, continue on the asphalt road until it makes a right turn. Here split off into the meadow on a path that descends between pastures, steadily then more sharply until you reach a road. Without joining this road, turn sharply left onto the grassy path (Voie dès Vatches) and climb up to the right until you reach the Rue du Pont de Bois which you can follow to the end, descending as you do. At the junction, cross the Rue des Fonds de Dave and head right, descending on a path beside a new house. This path splits and you descend to the left, crossing a stream until you reach a road. Go straight over onto the Rue des Nolettes as it rises up, then turn right into the Rue du Brondia. Descend to the the last house on the street (number 21) and continue straight ahead on the right side of the garden. Surprisingly this is a public footpath. Through a gate on the other side of the lawn turn to your left and follow the path until it brings you back to the Rue des Nolettes. Go straight until you reach the Rue de l’Ecole moments later and descend into Dave again. You’ll see the tunnel under the road and railway again on the left.