Driving around America, you'll see they have these brown background signs telling you about museums and parks and stuff like that. We often stop by these to just take a look and it blows my mind how rich this country is that some random little lake somewhere will have a full blown parking lot and restroom and will look spick and span. There'll be a couple of those standard-issue picnic tables and standard-issue signboards describing the place.
I think the brown signs for "sights" which are the same shape as road directions are kinda standardized? I've been seeing them in Europe for decades too.
These ones with more detailed drawings are less common, but I've also seen them in multiple countries (at least my home town in Italy and some cities in Hungary have them).
These road signs are iconic. They’re noticeable but not distracting. They inform without imposing themselves. There’s something very soothing about them.
If you’ve ever taken the A10 motorway France between Bordeaux and Paris, it’s about a 500 km stretch that is fairly straight and, thus, a bit boring. But seeing these golden signs along the road was always a small event for me as a kid. They act as sporadic milestones: every time you see one, you know you’ve made progress and entered a new region.
Those monuments (from humans or from nature) should be obvious knowledge, but I generally don’t know any of them. It helps pacing the road trip, and be able to say “Mom, I’m at the level of the [Sainte Baume, for me]”.
Reading this article, I just realized that it is something I didn't appreciate enough when I was living in France. In Korea, my home country, you can find a lot of signs for local temples, though. But they do not have identities like French ones. There are some signs too but they are mostly commercial restaurants, local farms, and so on. And they are usually ugly with big letters with saturated colors; red and yellow.
Yeah its not a rocket science but rather tourism 101 for which every country has dedicated office & budget to support and grow. It may be easier to list western places which don't have them in places where they should.
We love these signs when we're touring. In our motorhome we're normally going slow enough that we can just turn off the autoroute or else log interesting sites for a future trip.
I'm British-Canadian so the European roads hold no fear for me. I'd say to any worried North Americans (roundabouts, kms, aires), just do it some time - France in particular is a chilled place to drive motorhomes (RVs if you must) and I've never had any grief. We avoid Paris and other dense urban areas, but the beautiful countryside and easy autoroutes make for an excellent tour. We're off to Norway next month and I hope the signage is as interesting.
These are awesome, but the downside is when you already have your day(s) planned out and didn't know about the super-appealing landmark or attraction they depict! Still, they do help set the tone that you are traveling through places with tons of history and awesome cultural destinations worth checking out.
> In France who has the right of way? The car that is already in the roundabout or the car entering the roundabout?
Actually it's pretty consistent all across Europe. Almost everywhere, every entrance to the roundabout has the yield sign [1]. Without the yield sign, every incoming traffic is right hand traffic and those already on the roundabout have to give a way.
Now the trick is that yield signs at the entrance are so common that drivers assume they are always there.
In France, in absence of contrary indications (ie: absence of signs, traffic signals, or line markings), it's "Priority to the Right".
So if it's an actual roundabout (aka, "rond-point"), then normal traffic rules apply for intersections: Priority to the Right. Vehicles already on the roundabout must yield to cars entering it.
Often, you have what is referred as "Carrefours à sens giratoire", which can very much look like "rond-points", but priority is to the vehicles already on the roundabout. For this reason, there will be a yield sign at the entrance of the roundabout to make it clear there's a special rule that applies to it. Sometimes you have traffic lights as well.
> Vehicles already on the roundabout must yield to cars entering it.
Yeah but that's theory and theory only.
I would say that 99.9% of anything that look like a roundabout is a "normal roundabout" where the priority is for people in the center, not for the ones entering. This is currently the same than the rest of Europe.
Place de l'étoile is an exception, not a rule and the total number of roundabout like that in the country can probably be counted on one hand.
Most of the world doesn't have 6x6 lane uncontrolled intersections where people need to yield to the right. In fact your average 2 lane intersection with traffic lights, here in North America, once those traffic lights don't work for some reason it becomes almost impossible to navigate the intersection despite the "priority rules" being more or less known. It just becomes total chaos because there is usually enough traffic to just keep one direction going forever given that everyone slows down.
Even with one lane intersections North America usually uses "all stop" if there's any amount of traffic to regulate the flow.
I just hate multi-lane roundabouts in general but the French ones I dislike even more. There's a lot more that you need to keep track of, the traffic in the roundabout and the traffic that wants to enter.
I remember being a passenger in an Audi 80 Avant with windsurf boards n that on the roof, traveling from the ruhr in northern Germany to southern Spain, in around 1985. We went via la rue du soleil or a sodding great motorway through France - north to south.
Never able to pay attention to them as I'm hyper alert to « CÉDEZ LE PASSAGE » signs, or the absence of one telling me I don't have to give way, which means I don't have priority, and some random local could barrel out at 90km/h.
Interesting, I've driven in 15 different European countries and found France to be one of the easiest and most chill. I mean, on the highways and city streets, anyways -- not so much on the farmland single-lane roads that shockingly have a speed limit of 90km/h lol ... but regardless, the "people merging in from the right have the right-of-way" actually makes sense to me since they're engaging in the most "high-pressure" action, while those of us strolling along on the highway can just adjust our speed to give them space, or change lanes ahead of time as needed.
For somebody with seemingly so much experience its interesting how incorrect yet confident you are. Maybe less bragging about meaningless numbers (kms driven are much more important) and more fact-checking in the future?
Interestingly, I believe this manoeuvre (move over to make room for cars entering the highway) is banned in Germany, because it can cause accidents as the cars from the slower right lanes suddenly move to the left lanes.
That is not correct - making room is legal and encouraged. You are free to use left lanes for good reasons - being too lazy to switch lanes is the one common not good reason.
High speed driving requires looking far ahead to anticipate lane changes of other drivers.
Well, the signs described in the article are only used on the highways, so if they were talking about non-highway driving I guess they may have missed that detail heh
I think their placement is weird though. They really don’t tell you how to get there. Sometimes they are very far from the thing they advertise. And you really shouldn’t go off the motorway when you see the sign. It could be quite confusing when you actually are planning to go to that place.
Also a bunch of places that are shown in the sign are privately owned like zoos and recreation parks. These tend to be iconic ones but it still feels a little off.
Driving around America, you'll see they have these brown background signs telling you about museums and parks and stuff like that. We often stop by these to just take a look and it blows my mind how rich this country is that some random little lake somewhere will have a full blown parking lot and restroom and will look spick and span. There'll be a couple of those standard-issue picnic tables and standard-issue signboards describing the place.
I really love these random stops.
I think the brown signs for "sights" which are the same shape as road directions are kinda standardized? I've been seeing them in Europe for decades too.
These ones with more detailed drawings are less common, but I've also seen them in multiple countries (at least my home town in Italy and some cities in Hungary have them).
These road signs are iconic. They’re noticeable but not distracting. They inform without imposing themselves. There’s something very soothing about them.
If you’ve ever taken the A10 motorway France between Bordeaux and Paris, it’s about a 500 km stretch that is fairly straight and, thus, a bit boring. But seeing these golden signs along the road was always a small event for me as a kid. They act as sporadic milestones: every time you see one, you know you’ve made progress and entered a new region.
Those monuments (from humans or from nature) should be obvious knowledge, but I generally don’t know any of them. It helps pacing the road trip, and be able to say “Mom, I’m at the level of the [Sainte Baume, for me]”.
Reading this article, I just realized that it is something I didn't appreciate enough when I was living in France. In Korea, my home country, you can find a lot of signs for local temples, though. But they do not have identities like French ones. There are some signs too but they are mostly commercial restaurants, local farms, and so on. And they are usually ugly with big letters with saturated colors; red and yellow.
Italy, Denmark and Germany also have similar signs: brown, with a drawing (expect Italy, which has photos).
Yeah its not a rocket science but rather tourism 101 for which every country has dedicated office & budget to support and grow. It may be easier to list western places which don't have them in places where they should.
As a European I don't know a single country I have visited that doesn't have these kind of signs.
We love these signs when we're touring. In our motorhome we're normally going slow enough that we can just turn off the autoroute or else log interesting sites for a future trip.
I'm British-Canadian so the European roads hold no fear for me. I'd say to any worried North Americans (roundabouts, kms, aires), just do it some time - France in particular is a chilled place to drive motorhomes (RVs if you must) and I've never had any grief. We avoid Paris and other dense urban areas, but the beautiful countryside and easy autoroutes make for an excellent tour. We're off to Norway next month and I hope the signage is as interesting.
I do not remember signage to be particularly interesting in Norway but they do have some of the most spectacular routes in Europe!
This is not a specifically french sight, similar signs are common across whole Europe.
Seems like they were invented in France in the 70s (I looked it up). I think they started to appear in Germany later than that, about early 2000s.
These are awesome, but the downside is when you already have your day(s) planned out and didn't know about the super-appealing landmark or attraction they depict! Still, they do help set the tone that you are traveling through places with tons of history and awesome cultural destinations worth checking out.
Japan has similar signs for cities along the highway.
They need to teach how to use their crazy roundabouts...
EDIT: https://youtube.com/shorts/Fs8h9SRqJ5I?si=eZNm9p5HirXkknmU
That's just a regular rounndabout.
I thought you were talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGvj7GZSIo
Heh. Let's do a quick survey though. In France who has the right of way? The car that is already in the roundabout or the car entering the roundabout?
> In France who has the right of way? The car that is already in the roundabout or the car entering the roundabout?
Actually it's pretty consistent all across Europe. Almost everywhere, every entrance to the roundabout has the yield sign [1]. Without the yield sign, every incoming traffic is right hand traffic and those already on the roundabout have to give a way.
Now the trick is that yield signs at the entrance are so common that drivers assume they are always there.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_sign
In Italy, we call those no-yield-sign ones "French roundabouts" ("rotonde alla francese").
They've been super rare since the early 2000's though.
> In France who has the right of way? The car that is already in the roundabout or the car entering the roundabout?
The answer is, it depends, pay attention to the signs! Most of the time it’s the car on the roundabout, but not always.
In France, in absence of contrary indications (ie: absence of signs, traffic signals, or line markings), it's "Priority to the Right".
So if it's an actual roundabout (aka, "rond-point"), then normal traffic rules apply for intersections: Priority to the Right. Vehicles already on the roundabout must yield to cars entering it.
Often, you have what is referred as "Carrefours à sens giratoire", which can very much look like "rond-points", but priority is to the vehicles already on the roundabout. For this reason, there will be a yield sign at the entrance of the roundabout to make it clear there's a special rule that applies to it. Sometimes you have traffic lights as well.
> Vehicles already on the roundabout must yield to cars entering it.
Yeah but that's theory and theory only.
I would say that 99.9% of anything that look like a roundabout is a "normal roundabout" where the priority is for people in the center, not for the ones entering. This is currently the same than the rest of Europe.
Place de l'étoile is an exception, not a rule and the total number of roundabout like that in the country can probably be counted on one hand.
> the total number of roundabout like that in the country can probably be counted on one hand.
Most probably not. I know 3 of them off the top of my head in my neck of the woods. They are not super common, but they are not that rare either.
I've been driving in France for almost 30 years and I wouldn't be able to point to a single "rond-point".
Most of the world doesn't have 6x6 lane uncontrolled intersections where people need to yield to the right. In fact your average 2 lane intersection with traffic lights, here in North America, once those traffic lights don't work for some reason it becomes almost impossible to navigate the intersection despite the "priority rules" being more or less known. It just becomes total chaos because there is usually enough traffic to just keep one direction going forever given that everyone slows down.
Even with one lane intersections North America usually uses "all stop" if there's any amount of traffic to regulate the flow.
I just hate multi-lane roundabouts in general but the French ones I dislike even more. There's a lot more that you need to keep track of, the traffic in the roundabout and the traffic that wants to enter.
I took my boys around that roundabout when they were learning to drive.
I remember being a passenger in an Audi 80 Avant with windsurf boards n that on the roof, traveling from the ruhr in northern Germany to southern Spain, in around 1985. We went via la rue du soleil or a sodding great motorway through France - north to south.
We had to slow down to 80mph in France.
Never able to pay attention to them as I'm hyper alert to « CÉDEZ LE PASSAGE » signs, or the absence of one telling me I don't have to give way, which means I don't have priority, and some random local could barrel out at 90km/h.
Interesting, I've driven in 15 different European countries and found France to be one of the easiest and most chill. I mean, on the highways and city streets, anyways -- not so much on the farmland single-lane roads that shockingly have a speed limit of 90km/h lol ... but regardless, the "people merging in from the right have the right-of-way" actually makes sense to me since they're engaging in the most "high-pressure" action, while those of us strolling along on the highway can just adjust our speed to give them space, or change lanes ahead of time as needed.
For somebody with seemingly so much experience its interesting how incorrect yet confident you are. Maybe less bragging about meaningless numbers (kms driven are much more important) and more fact-checking in the future?
People merging have right of way only on the parisian périphérique. On all other motorways in France, the merging cars must yield.
It is common courtesy to move over or match speed so they can merge more easily, but that's not the law.
Interestingly, I believe this manoeuvre (move over to make room for cars entering the highway) is banned in Germany, because it can cause accidents as the cars from the slower right lanes suddenly move to the left lanes.
That is not correct - making room is legal and encouraged. You are free to use left lanes for good reasons - being too lazy to switch lanes is the one common not good reason.
High speed driving requires looking far ahead to anticipate lane changes of other drivers.
Reduced to 80km/h since 2018.
Paris' périphérique is nowadays limited to 50 km/h.
Oh right, I totally forgot! I mean, even then, for so many of those roads I'd never consider driving that fast haha
I don't think they're talking about merging on a highway?
Sounds like they're talking about the fact that at an intersection, unless signaled otherwise, the people coming from the right have right of way.
Well, the signs described in the article are only used on the highways, so if they were talking about non-highway driving I guess they may have missed that detail heh
These signs are mostly on the highway
The “Grapes in a Cognac glass” image looks like an electric car charger symbol lol
Oh I didn’t realize these only existed in France!
These are cool indeed.
I think their placement is weird though. They really don’t tell you how to get there. Sometimes they are very far from the thing they advertise. And you really shouldn’t go off the motorway when you see the sign. It could be quite confusing when you actually are planning to go to that place.
Also a bunch of places that are shown in the sign are privately owned like zoos and recreation parks. These tend to be iconic ones but it still feels a little off.
Well, they don't, I've seen them at least in Hungary and Italy.
Still, it is possible France came up with them first.