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Show IMPRESSIONS OLD AND NEW The Ardennes Delightful Holiday Resort Hospitality of People Dinant Se-moi Se-moi Vailey Castie of Bouillon Spa, Its Waters and Baths Ambleve and i Franchimont. (Special Correspondence.) I know of no more delightful place to spend a hol'day than the Ardennes. It is a beautiful and varied country. Lordly forests, lovely vales, towering tower-ing rocks, ruined castles and churches old as the days of feudal chivalry, majestic rivers greet the eye, turn where you' will, ami a peaceful, a quiet charm rests over all. The inhabitant of the city, the city where all is rush and push, where life is all one long fret and worry, will find in the Ardennes one of Nature's best and most beautiful retreats, and this luxury of scenery, calm and repose is within with-in the reach of the slender purse. I know of nowhere no-where else you can get such good accommodation, such healthful fare, with ample amusement, as in the Ardennes. The people of the Ardennes are simple sim-ple and of a lively disposition, and you feel at home wiih thtm the moment you place your foot in their niidsi. They speak the French language very well, i.nd many of them have a fair knowledge of tbo English. Their homes, nestling in the forests, by the p'acid streams, in the quiet of the valleys, and beneath the frowning rock, are clean and tastefully decorated, and tin; fare those simple folk place before be-fore the tourist'W.uild tempt the most hard-pleased appetite. The Ardennes stretch from Leige in th-.i north to Luxemburg in the south, and to the French frontier on the west. The country in the days' of Caesar was one immense forest, as he tells us in his description of it, and peopled by various tribes of barbarians, whose constant amusement was war. In the old days the people of the Ardennes were constantly at war with the powerful dukes of Burgundy, Bur-gundy, especially Charles the Bold, and the ruined castles and forts which today dot the lan ! owe their downfall to the Burgundian dynasty. For a tourist who wishes to see what is to be seen in the Ardennes, Dinant is his best headquarters. It is the most interesting in-teresting and historic town in the Ardennes, ami certainly it has reason to remember Charles the Bold. The latter laid seige to the town because of an insult the inhabitants offered him. and after pillaging the place he caused the prisoners to be thrown into the Meuse. In the sack of the beautiful Church of Notre Dame, a relic of the thirteenth century, was almost destroyed. Near the church is a wonderful flight of 408 steps which lead to the I Citadel of Dinant. The view of the surrounding ! country obtained from the citadel is well worth the effort of the climb up. You can see in the distance the famous Roche a Bayard, the beautiful little village of Anseremme. the home of painters, the Chateau de Walzin rising above the precipitous rock, home at one time of Walzin and La Marck. I the frowning Castle of Vive-Celles. meeting place ' of Pepin a Heristal and St. Hadelin the hermit. It is not my intention to enter into a lengthened description of the Ardennes, for to do so would fill a good sized volume. All I can do is to say a little about those places which struck me as full of interest. in-terest. From Dinant the train takes you to the quaint little town of Givet. from whence you proceed pro-ceed to explore the beautiful Semois valley. The latter valley is teeming with interest, no matter from what standpoint you view it. Its greatest attraction for me was the Castle of Bouillon. As a boy I had read of the exploits of the famous Crti- sader, Godfrey de Bouillon, who so valiantly fought for the Christ in Syrian lands, and consequently I that huge, stone fortress rising above the winding I ; Semois held for me a charm I could not describe in words. To enter the castle, you have to cross two 1 drawbridges, and beyond the second bridge is a ! moat which was filled with water in case of siege. It was built in the seventh century by Trrpin, Count f of Ardenne. but in the tenth century it passed into f the hands of the Godefroi, Dukes of Lorraine. The young days of Godfrey were spent in this frown- f ing old castle, and there he had as his tutor Peter I the Hermit. A great Christian, a warrior without f fear and without reproach, the words which he uttered when Jerusalem was taken from part of ? history. His followers wished to make him king ( ' of Jerusalem consequent to his successful capture '! of it, but he refused with "I shall never wear a I crown of gold in the city where my Savior wore a crown of thorns." f ' It is interesting to note that after the disastrous defeat of Sedan, Napoleon III, then a prisoner, was brought to Bouillon on his way to Germany, X and the room he occupied then is still pointed out. .-' For those who care to see that bloody battlefield. I so vividly described by Zola in his "Downfall," there is a diligence which plies regularly from ! Bouillon to Sedan. From Bouillon you can easily 1 reach the most delightful district in the Ardennes Laroche. In the summer months it is hard to get ! accommodations in this town on account of the influx in-flux of visitors attracted thither by the beauty of ' its-surroundings. It was of the country around Laroche that Shakespeare writes about in his "As ' You Like It." "They say he is already in the For- , est of Arden, and a many merry men with him, and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the Golden Gold-en World. The forest which the poet speaks about is between Marehe and Laroche. Marche is a pretty little town and, as Caesar has it in his Commentaries' Commen-taries' its first inhabitants were the Paemani. Since that time it saw many changes and many great men among the number being John pf Bohemia, Bo-hemia, Philip II, John of Austria and Lafayette. I v pass over the beautiful town of Liege, situated at the opening of the valleys of Ourthe and Ambleve ' and famous for its university. Beaufraipont, inseparably in-separably connected with Marshall Bouf tiers, Em- bourg, fortress of the Aduatice of Caesar's day, Esneux, victorious battleground of Jourdan. Logne, stronsrhold of the fierce La Marcks, Dur-buy, Dur-buy, once pillaged by Louis XTV. I pass over f these interesting and historic places and come .to. Continued on Page 5. IMPRESSIONS OLD AND NEW (Continued from page 1.) Spa, the oldest watering place in Europe. Spa i a very much frequented place, the center of attraction attrac-tion being its mineral springs. The waters of Spa are sparkling and not disgusting to the taste, and are very efficacious in effecting- a euro with regard to nervous diseases and liver complaints. The springs are sixteen in number, and each one of them has its own special attraction and healing powers. There is also at Spa a very extensive bathing establishment es-tablishment built at a cost of SO,000 and supplied with all modern comforts. The baths rangs from 1 franc to 4 francs, and the establishment keeps its doors open from 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. The country in all directions around Spa is very beautiful, and the little towns and villages have each their distinctive characteristic and linked in some way or another with names great in history. Two of these places are immortalized by Sir Walter Scott. Ambleve and the old fortress of Franchemont. The former was the home of the fierce William de la Marck. the "Wild Boar of the Ardennes," who terminated his ignoble career upon the scaffold at Mastrecht in 1485. Reference is made to him in Quentin Dur-ward. Dur-ward. The old fortress of Franchimont played a nrominent part in the wars of Charles the Bold and Louis XT, and from the ninth century even to the days of the French Revolution its walls were almost continually the scene of conflict. The peasants will tell you the castle is haunted, haunted by the ghost of a warrior whose duty it is to keep guard over the crumbling ruins and the treasure which was "Amassed through rapine and through wrong By the last lord of Franchimont.' A holiday in the Ardennes is certainly a pleasure to be long remembered and many tourists leave that peaceful and beautiful country with the resolve to come again another day. Xext week we will take a trip to that famous old seaport town Antwerp. XAPPER TANDY. Liege, August 10. 1009. |