Antiques Buying Trip Day 11: Chateau Tour

On our last day of the Antiques Buying Trip, Greg and I had finished everything we needed to do, so we headed to southern Belgium to visit the Chateau de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne.  The lovely chateau dates to 1450 and has several rooms decorated in period furnishings from the 17th century.  Although it's somewhat of a "busman's holiday", we enjoy visiting historical home museums to see antique furniture.

After touring the Chateau de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne (which also had a rather creepy taxidermy museum!), we stopped in Dinant, a very charming city on the river Meuse.  The onion-domed cathedral is very beautiful, but the highlight of the town is the Fortress-Citadel high up on a mountain overlooking the river.  The fortress was begun in 1040 and has had quite an interesting and varied history.  As you can imagine, any military leader would be interested in taking such a strategic position, and as such it was taken by Henry II, Charles the Bold, Louis XIV, and played a role in both World War I and II.  Dinant was also famous during the Middle Ages for its fine brass metalware, called dinanderie.  Unfortunately, 800 metalworkers were thrown off the fortress by Charles the Bold in 1466, which lead to the loss of expertise in this craft.

Tune in to our next Antiques Buying Trip video to see the end of the tour!