The road from Frankfurt to Stuttgart offers no points of interest, and I have no impressions to give you: not a single romantic haunt to describe, no dark forests, no monasteries, no lonely chapels or foaming torrents, no strange noise in the night, not even that of Don Quixote's windmills; not so much as a huntsman or milkmaid or weeping damsel, stray heifer, lost child, distracted mother, shepherd, robber, beggar or brigand to be seen; nothing but the moonlight and the sound of horses and the snores of the sleeping coachman, and here and there a few uncouth peasants under wide three-cornered hats, dressed in voluminous linen frock-coats which had once been white, with long trailing tails meeting between their muddy legs, the whole outfit giving them the appearance of village priests off duty—that's all!

—Hector Berlioz, Memoirs