Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836

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CONT. AUG. 19. FRIDAY.

& Luxembourg. - These the good king of Holland projected & completed principally and this is part of the debt of which Belgium wishes to avoid paying her share.

Arlon was so small a town in Inglis' time as to be without an inn. It has several now, & from the great number of new houses building must be a thriving town.

Being anxious to arrive at Treves tonight we had promised the driver a trifle if he would reach Luxembourg by 4 instead of 6 as he expected it would take. This induced him to keep the horse on at a merry pace & a very little after the time fixed we entered this strongly fortified town. My blouse prevented the sentinels or police from imagining that we were strangers & thus we had not up to this time had occasion for a passport. Draw bridges, arched gateways & Prussian soldiers we passed in abundance & on reaching the diligence office were delighted to find that the packet boats leave Treves on Sunday instead of tomorrow thus giving the extra day we were so much in need of. We soon strolled down to the fortifications & were thunderstruck I may say at the extensive nature of high ramparts around & the romantic looking little towers within it. For two hours did we ramble down up about & around every part to which a path or road conducted & still we remained unsatisfied. For in mounting up the high ramparts the whole of the low town seems scooped out of the rock, and besides this there is an immense space around with rows of houses, gardens in terraces many put one above another, guard houses, churches a cemetery, fountains rows of tall poplars, old towers, bridges, massive projections of rock - vineyards everything one can imagine, intersected & enlivened by moats & gravel paths, bright white pavés & carts, wagons, some women, children, soldiers, & all that can add to the prettiness of a picture. And one pretty little bright red house shone conspicuously above all the others

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