Le Franco Phoney

I’m back from my quick road trip to Nice, and a blog entry with lots of photos of the route will follow soon. But for now, here’s further insight into French roundabouts. During my trip, I passed all sorts of interesting roundabouts, but most of the time it was too hard to stop for a photo. I’ve taken some, but here are just a few of the roundabouts I came across (that I remember):

• giant statues of sheep grazing, rolling on their backs and dancing (!?) on a grassy roundabout near Chambery;
• various animal carvings on roundabouts near the Col de Galibier (in slide show in post above);
• a man-sized globe of the earth in Digne-les-Bains;
• roundabouts in various villages celebrating le Tour de France bike race (due to go through those villages within the next few weeks);
• a giant copper perfume distiller in Grasse, the home of many perfumeries; and,
• a telepherique in Serre Chevalier (pictured).

And of course, just before La Clusaz, I passed my local ‘happening’ roundabout in St. Jean de Sixt, which had a mannequin dressed in Napoleonic battle costume, perched on the roof of the little house. It was too dark to take a good photo. I think the man that puts the mannequins on the roundabout might have been drinking a bit before that one…