About me, and about this site
I am Maëlle Dethy. I guide people on foot around Namur and I live at the bottom of the hill the fortress sits on, so I walk the Route Merveilleuse most weeks of the year and have done it in sleet, in August heat and in the fog that comes off the two rivers in November. This site is the answer I got tired of giving twice a day: yes, you can go up, the grounds are open all year, and the galleries, the passes and the guided days are how you make a day of it.
Why the site exists
People arrive at the Citadelle looking for a gate and a ticket desk, and there isn’t one at the top of the ramp. The operator’s own FAQ puts it better than I can: the citadel is a large public park, anyone can walk it freely, at any time of year. The ticket desk is on the hill itself, at Terra Nova, for the galleries, the medieval visit, the train and the visitor centre — and the cable car brings you up from the river if you would rather not climb.
That is a simple thing to say and almost nothing online says it. What is written about this hill tends to be either a municipal page nobody finishes reading or a booking listing you have to read twice. So I wrote the plain version of a day here: what the grounds include, what the tickets buy, and what the tunnels are.
How to plan the day
Attraction tickets and the Citadelle Pass are sold at the desk when you arrive — no advance booking needed. What you book ahead is the experience around it: a guided walk, a photo session or a day along the Meuse with the driving done for you. Every listing on this site is described from its own GetYourGuide page, so what you read here is what you get.
What I can point you at is the guided day: a walk round the town with a local, a photographer who takes you up the hill, a coach that runs down the Meuse. Two of the twelve reach the Citadelle itself by their own account, and the citadel’s own visits are ticketed at the desk. They are all set out, with what each listing covers, on every tour we list.
Where the facts come from
Prices and hours on this site come from the operator of the Citadelle and from the cable-car company, and I say which is which and link to both. Tour details come from the GetYourGuide listing pages, read in full. Reviewer quotes are verbatim, and every one names the tour it came from, on the reviews page.
Where I do not know something, the page says so instead of guessing. There are questions about the souterrains I get asked constantly — how cold is it down there, how long does the visit take — that I have not put a number on, because the operator does not publish one and my own impression is not a fact.
How the site pays for itself
If you book a tour through a link here, GetYourGuide pays me a small commission and you pay the same price you would have paid anyway. That is the whole business model and it is why the disclosure page exists.
Corrections are welcome and I would rather have them than not. A tariff changes, a listing gets rewritten, a footpath closes for works. Tell me and I will fix the page.