We arrived at Voghera to breakfast and at Casteggio at night. The country is much the same as that which we have already passed thro', being a plain, with a rich alluvial soil, mulberry trees and a number of solidly built stone farmhouses. The next morning at eleven o'clock we arrived at Piacenza on the Po, and were detained a quarter of an hour at the _Douane_ of Her Majesty the Archduchess, as Maria Louisa, the present Duchess of Parma, is stiled, we being now arrived in her dominions. We drove to the _Hôtel di San Marco_, which is close to the _Piazza Grande_, and alighted there. On the Piazza stands the _Hôtel de Ville_, and in front of it are two equestrian statues in bronze of the Princes Farnesi; the statues, however, of the riders appear much too small in proportion with the horses, and they resemble two little boys mounted on Lincolnshire carthorses. I did not visit the churches and palaces in this city from not having time and, besides, I did not feel myself inclined or _bound_ (as some travellers think themselves) to visit every church and every town in Italy. I really believe the _ciceroni_ think that we _Ultramontani_ live in mud hovels in our own country, and that we have never seen a stone edifice, till our arrival in Italy, for every town house which is not a shop is termed a _palazzo_, and they would conduct you to see all of them if you would be guided by them. I had an opportunity, during the two hours we halted here, of walking over the greater part of the city, after a hasty breakfast. Piacenza is a large handsome city; among the females that I saw in the streets the Spanish costume seems very prevalent, no doubt from being so long governed by a Spanish family.