Durbuy

Durbuy is a small town on the Ourthe in the province of Luxembourg, its municipality covering 156.61 square kilometres across Barvaux, Bomal, Wéris and a dozen other districts. It calls itself the world’s smallest city, which is a commercial claim rather than an official one, Belgium’s smallest, since 2006, is Mesen. Barvaux is actually the most populous town in the municipality. What Durbuy has is a tight knot of stone houses in a bend of the river beneath a wooded ridge, and enough marked paths in the surrounding hills to make it a walking base rather than a stop.