Arlon

Arlon was Orolaunum, a Roman settlement on the road from Reims to Trier, and it competes with Tongeren for the title of oldest town in Belgium. What makes it worth a stop is the Archaeological Museum, which holds one of the more important collections of Gallo-Roman funerary sculpture north of the Alps: carved blocks from monumental tombs showing scenes of daily life, travellers, shops, meals, farm work and mythological subjects, recovered from the late Roman town wall where they had been reused as building material. The town also has remains of that wall, a Roman bath house under a modern building, and a hilltop church on the site of the Roman citadel with a view into Luxembourg and France.

History

Before the Romans the Treveri, a Celtic tribe, held the land, and the Roman vicus of Orolaunum became a busy commercial and administrative centre, as its many sculpted stones show, until the Germanic invasions of the 3rd century, despite walls built on the Knipchen hill. In 1060 Waleran I of Limburg, Count of Arlon, built a castle on that hill, the town passed to the county of Luxembourg in 1226, a Cistercian abbey for women was founded at Clairefontaine in the 13th century, and in 1441 the duchy joined the Burgundian Netherlands; French troops destroyed nearly half the town in 1558, fire struck again in 1785, and in 1839 the Treaty of London gave Arlon, with the western part of the duchy, to Belgium (Wikipedia, Arlon).

What's there

• Gallo-Roman funerary reliefs - daily-life scenes carved on tomb blocks.
• Reused sculpture from the town wall - where the carvings survived.
• Roman bath remains - excavated beneath a modern building.
• The hilltop church and view - the Roman citadel site above the town.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. The museum closes on Mondays and has limited hours. Arlon is on the main line to Luxembourg, which makes it an easy stop.

Before you go

The town itself is unremarkable and the museum is the reason to come. Museum labelling is in French. Roman remains above ground are fragments. There is little else for a visitor.

Nearby

Torgny and the Gaume are south-west; Luxembourg City lies east.

Key facts