The Semois, loop after loop

At Botassart you look down on the Tombeau du Géant, a wooded hill that the Semois wraps right around. That shape decides how you walk and paddle here. A four-hour route sometimes gets you only two kilometers further as the crow flies. From Botassart it's a twenty-minute walk to that viewpoint. On the slopes you'll still see the wooden drying barns from the days when tobacco was grown here.

The villages in the valley are small and sit high above the water, so you keep descending and climbing again. A group with mixed fitness needs a plan for that. The ferry at Frahan saves you half an hour of climbing and runs from April to October, but only when the ferryman is there. Call the house the evening before and you'll know for sure. On the water, you can canoe from Bouillon to Poupehan in three hours, and the rental companies bring the group back. In the castle of Bouillon you walk through the passages in the rock with a torch. In the evening you drive to Orval Abbey and have a beer in the inn across the road, brewed right there.