Auberge de Bouvignes

The Auberge de Bouvignes is a stone farmhouse on the bank of the Meuse, in Bouvignes-sur-Meuse near Dinant. Its walls, sixty centimetres thick, and its oak beams were raised shortly after 1830, when the building opened as a relay for boatmen and the horses that hauled barges upriver. Registered in 1836 under the name Cabaret, it fed and rested both men and animals until steam tugs made the towpath trade obsolete. The building then turned to farming, and in 1930 became an inn, with the old stable converted into the restaurant and sitting room. The current owners took it on in 1998 and have restored it gradually, room by room, since. Original parquet floors have been redone throughout. It is a compact stay, with only a handful of rooms behind a large stone façade, each with its own separate bathroom, flat-screen TV and free Wi-Fi. Rooms run from single to family size, the largest with two bedrooms and a 17 m² bathroom. Breakfast is a buffet of pastries and bread baked on site, cheeses, cold meats and fresh orange juice, served until 11am. In May 1940, a German division under Erwin Rommel crossed the Meuse directly opposite the building. You can watch the river from the terrace, still busy with barge traffic in season, and in spring the towpath into town fills with flowering trees.