Meuse & Ardennes - from Maastricht to the Semoisfrom Maastricht to the Semois

Maastricht claims to be the oldest city in the Netherlands and began as a Roman crossing point on the Meuse. Life revolves around two squares: the broad Vrijthof with the Sint-Servaas basilica and the Sint-Janskerk, and the smaller Onze-Lieve-Vrouweplein, where the café terraces sit in the shadow of its own basilica. A thirteenth-century Dominican church now holds a bookshop, and the Bonnefanten shows old masters and contemporary art in a building with a domed tower on the riverbank. Beneath the Sint-Pietersberg run kilometres of passages cut over centuries for marl; like the fortress casemates, they can only be entered with a guide. The food is Burgundian in the local sense: vlaai, stewed zuurvlees and long afternoons outdoors. Maastricht has no low-emission zone, so even an older diesel may enter, but leave the motorhome on the edge of town and walk the centre.

Namur is the capital of Wallonia and sits where the Sambre runs into the Meuse, with a citadel on the rock above that was long considered the key to the country. Up on the plateau you walk the ramparts and the tunnels that generations of military engineers cut into the limestone, and a cable car carries you up from the Grognon at the confluence in a few minutes. Below lie narrow streets and café terraces around the cathedral of Saint-Aubain, while the museum on the Rue de Fer holds the Trésor d'Hugo d'Oignies, thirteenth-century goldsmith's work from a nearby priory. In September the Fêtes de Wallonie fill the streets, and stilt walkers try to knock each other over on the square in front of the cathedral. The old town is compact enough to visit on foot or by bus from a pitch outside the centre, which is the sensible way to do it with a long vehicle.

Dinant is wedged between a limestone cliff and the Meuse, in places no more than one row of houses deep. The collegiate church of Notre-Dame presses against the rock beneath a bulbous bell tower that fixes the town's silhouette, and directly above it stands the citadel, reached by 408 steps, by cable car or by road. Adolphe Sax was born here in 1814; a row of painted saxophones lines the bridge over the river and a small museum in the street where he grew up tells his story. Downstream stands the abbey of Leffe, where the beer of that name began. Cruise boats leave from the quay, and upstream the cliffs of Freÿr are waiting. For motorhomes there is one clear restriction to know about: you may not park on the Place d'Armes or on the casino car park, so look for a place further from the water and walk the last stretch into town.

Below the village the Lesse vanishes into the rock and comes back to daylight further on; in between lie the Grottes de Han, halls and galleries the water has cut through the limestone. Visitors leave the vehicle in the village and take the narrow-gauge tram that has run to the entrance since 1906, and the guided route ends in the Salle du Dôme, where a sound and light show reveals the full height of the chamber. On the other side of the village a wildlife reserve spreads over the limestone hills, with European bison, wolves and lynx watched from a safari bus. There is no car park at the cave site itself: you park in the village, which is also where the tram leaves from. During Belgian and Dutch school holidays it gets busy, so either come early in the day or stay the night and be there when the gates open.

Bouillon sits in a loop of the Semois around a rock crowned by the castle that Godfrey of Bouillon handed over in 1096 to pay for his crusade. You enter across three drawbridges set one behind the other, then follow passages cut into the rock to the halls and a deep well, while the towers look out over the river and the wooded slopes. In the courtyard falconers fly birds of prey for visitors. Below, the town stretches along both banks, with quays where kayaks are launched and a bridge joining the two halves. As the gateway to the Semois valley, designated a Walloon national park, Bouillon is worth two nights: one for the castle and the town itself, another for a walk up to the viewpoints and a drive along the meanders. The approach roads drop steeply to the river, so take the descent slowly with a long vehicle.

Bastogne stood at the centre of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944: the town was surrounded, and General McAuliffe answered the German demand for surrender with a single word, Nuts. A Sherman tank has stood on the Place McAuliffe ever since, and on the Mardasson hill outside the centre the star-shaped memorial honours the American soldiers who fell in the Ardennes. Beside it the Bastogne War Museum tells the story of the battle through four witnesses, from a boy who lived in the town to a German officer. In the woods near Foy the foxholes of the Bois Jacques are still visible in the ground, dug by men who held the line through a bitter winter. The museum car park is open during the day but overnight stays are not allowed. Allow half a day for the memorial and the museum; the town itself is small and soon seen.

The town sits inside a loop of the Ourthe, with the ruins of a feudal castle standing on the rock above it since the eleventh century. From the walls you look out over slate roofs and wooded slopes, while down below the quay and the shopping street are lined with butchers smoking Ardennes ham and selling game pâté. Kayak operators drive you upstream so you can paddle back down with the current, and walking routes head out of the centre straight into the surrounding hills. The Musée de la Bataille des Ardennes covers the winter of 1944, when the town was badly hit; tanks stand as monuments at a few points in the streets. Do not take a long vehicle through the tight bends of the old core: the through road follows the river and the larger car parks are on the edge of town. On summer weekends the riverside fills up.

Durbuy claims the title of smallest city in the world, which it owes to a charter granted in the fourteenth century. What that amounts to is a handful of cobbled lanes lined with grey stone houses, squeezed between the Ourthe and a cliff face. Above the huddle stands the castle of the counts d'Ursel, still in private hands and closed to visitors, though it is clearly visible from the bridge. Walking the whole place takes half an hour; after that there is the topiary park with its clipped shrubs, a jam factory where you can see the copper pans at work, and across the river a cluster of adventure sports from kayaking to via ferrata. On summer weekends and in the school holidays it fills right up and the riverside terraces stay busy late. Keep a long vehicle out of the core and park on the ground at the edge.

Maastricht claims to be the oldest city in the Netherlands and began as a Roman crossing point on the Meuse. Life revolves around two squares: the broad Vrijthof with the Sint-Servaas basilica and the Sint-Janskerk, and the smaller Onze-Lieve-Vrouweplein, where the café terraces sit in the shadow of its own basilica. A thirteenth-century Dominican church now holds a bookshop, and the Bonnefanten shows old masters and contemporary art in a building with a domed tower on the riverbank. Beneath the Sint-Pietersberg run kilometres of passages cut over centuries for marl; like the fortress casemates, they can only be entered with a guide. The food is Burgundian in the local sense: vlaai, stewed zuurvlees and long afternoons outdoors. Maastricht has no low-emission zone, so even an older diesel may enter, but leave the motorhome on the edge of town and walk the centre.