In the city of Dinant, in Belgium’s Walloon Region

 “Its principal merit in my view is the varied beauty of its accent, sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague, like the weakened echo of an echo, like the indistinct plaintiff moans of the breeze in the woods and, even better, like the mysterious vibrations of a bell, long after it has been struck; there does not exist another musical instrument that I know of that possesses this strange resonance, which is situated at the edge of silence.”

-- Hector Berlioz (the French composer's assessment of Adolphe Sax's "brass horn" [Berlioz was the first to call it a Saxophone])
=====================================================================  
(in Dinant, Belgium, the "birthplace" of the Saxophone) Dinant is a city in (primarily French-speaking) Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium (along with Flanders and Brussels). Located in the province of Namur, in the Ardennes (a region of forests, rough terrain, rolling hills, and ridges), Dinant lies 90 km (~56 mi.) southeast of Brussels, 30 km (~19 mi.) southeast of Charleroi, and 30 km south of the city of Namur. (Dinant is 20 km (~12 mi.) north of the border with France.)

+ One of the most attractive places in Wallonia, Dinant is found along the banks of the Meuse River, with the Dianant citadel looming over the city. The story of Dinant goes back to the 10th century. Most famous for its citadel, Adolphe Sax (the inventor of the saxophone), and Leffe beer (which was first brewed in Dinant), the city is quaint and charming.

+ This city in the Upper Meuse valley, at a point where the river cuts deeply into the western Condroz plateau, is quite an attractive spot. Squeezed between the river and the high valley walls, it is sited in a steep sided valley, between the rock face and the river. The original settlement had little space in which to grow away from the river, and so, it expanded into quite a long, narrow town, on a north-south axis, along the river shore.

+ Dinant has been enriched by the agricultural opportunities presented by the fertile land on the plateau that overlooks it. Within the town, brassware production is a traditional craft that has benefited from the presence of the broad and, at this point, easily navigable river, which has facilitated delivery of the raw materials and ready distribution of the resulting products of the artisans' workshops.

+ To the east is a great wall of limestone that has long made Dinant a compelling place for armies to gain a foothold on the river. The cliff is still topped by a (newer) citadel, above the distinctive 16th-centuy onion dome of the Collegiate Church. On the riverside is Boulevard Léon Sasserath and its string of restaurant and cafe terraces. Vistitors to Dinant soon learn that this is a city with real "sax appeal," as the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone. There are saxophone monuments all over town in his honor (including along the bridge on which Charles de Gaulle took a bullet in the leg in 1914.)