Situated in the far southeast corner of Belgium wedged between France and Luxembourg, Arlon (Flemish Aarlen) is one of the country's oldest towns. Now the capital of the Belgian province of Luxembourg, it lies on the plateau of the Ardennes at the intersection of two Roman roads, Reims to Trier and Tongeren to Metz. Having founded the settlement (Orolaunum), the Romans also later fortified it in the third C. AD The town is built on the slopes of a conical hill once topped by the castle of the counts of Arlon.
The Musée Luxembourgeois contains fascinating collections of Roman tombstones and sarcophagi, ceramics, etc., along with Merovingian period pieces, and folk art.
Next to the thermal baths lie the ruins of the oldest Christian church in Belgium, originally a Roman building converted in the fifth and sixth centuries into a basilica and around which, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Franks buried their dead.
Until the late 18th C. demand for the iron smelted in its furnaces made Habay-la-Neuve, a small town 14km/9miles north-est of Arlon on the banks of the Rulles, a place of some importance. In the wooded countryside around it, houses such as Château Pont d'Oye (1742), 2km/1.25miles east on the Martelange road, still testify to the prosperity of those days. Later, in the 19th C., the château was the meeting place of an intellectual circle which formed around the writer Pierre Nothomb.
Down the hill from Saint-Donat's, below the Grand' Place, Arlon's provincial government building (1845), Palais de Justice (1864) and main post office stand grouped around Place Léopold. At the southern corner of the square an American tank commemorates the liberation of the town by General Patton's forces in December 1944.
Reached by an alleyway leading off the southeast corner of the square, the Tour romaine (Roman tower) is a relic of the third C. Roman ring walls. Today it is a museum.
Beyond Place Léopold, on the far side of Square Albert I, the 97m/318ft tower of Saint- Martin's church (1907) rises high above the roofs of the new town.
The Victory Memorial Museum, just off the E411/E25 motor way near the Hondelange Service Station about 7km/4miles from Arlon, was opened in February 1990. Claiming to be the biggest Second World War museum in the world, its aim is to provide a lasting record of the Allied campaign. On display are a collection of 150 vehicles, weaponry and uniforms, augmented by dioramas, films and documentary material.
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Address: Victory Memorial Museum, Messancy , Belgium
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Musée Luxembourgeois
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Habay-la-Neuve, Belgium
