31/05/2026
All you need to know about the Doudou:
Every year on Trinity Sunday, the city of Mons keeps one of Belgium’s oldest traditions fully alive. It’s called the Doudou, or the Ducasse de Mons, and it has been listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2008.
The story goes back to 1349. As the Black Death swept across Europe, the people of Mons carried the relics of their patron saint, Saint Waltrude, through the city to pray for protection. As tradition has it, the city was spared, and out of gratitude the procession has returned almost every year since. That is nearly 700 years of folklore.
At its heart lies a legend: Saint George and the dragon. Good against evil. A knight facing a beast that once terrorised a town, and winning. In Mons, that story grew into its own spectacle, the Lumeçon.
So the day has two hearts. First, the Procession of the Car d’Or. A golden chariot carrying the shrine of Saint Waltrude is pulled by horses and pushed by the crowd up the steep Sainte-Waudru ramp. If it reaches the top in one go, the year ahead will be a good one.
Then the Lumeçon itself. On a packed Grand-Place, Saint George battles the dragon in front of tens of thousands of people, while the crowd reaches in to grab a hair from its tail, said to bring a full year of luck. When the dragon finally falls, the whole city roars: “And the people of Mons shall not perish.”
What makes it special is not how old it is. It’s how alive it still is. 1,600 costumed participants, the same families generation after generation, an entire city on its feet. This is not heritage behind glass in a museum. You feel it, live, once a year.
📍 Mons, Wallonia
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Doudou Mons | Ducasse de Mons | Lumeçon | Belgian folklore | UNESCO heritage Belgium | Sainte-Waudru | things to do in Wallonia | Belgian traditions
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