What you gain on the roundabouts...

[shewhomust]

At the very end of our last trip to France, I started to notice that the roundabouts were sporting rather - umm - ambitious decorations. Instead of the familiar arrangement of, say, rowing boat at a fetching angle with bedding plants spilling out of it, one roundabout in Wimereux displayed a miniature hot-air balloon, in what looked like topiary. I was fascinated, but since the roundabouts tend to whizz past the car at great speed, there were no photos.

So it was particularly satisfying that the first photo I took on this year's trip should be this Eiffel Tower, on the roundabout where the slip road turned in to the Campanile hotel at Loon Plage. An even sillier one got away, though: on the approach to one of the towns which once grew rich on the textlie industry, two green and bushy balls of wool were impaled on knitting needles.

A few days later, in Saint Dizier (a town still well in the north and east of the country, best known for its iron foundries, of which more, perhaps, later) I spotted something equally inventive but in a different style. Three olive trees, each accompanied by a few clumps of lavender, were somehow managing to grow on a roundabout in the middle of the traffic - a little taste of Provence on the way to the railway station. Perhaps it was a hint that we should be making holiday plans, heading south by train...

Certainly, at Bourbonne-les-Bains the roundabout with the vines indicated that we were, indeed, on the right road for the vineyards of Coiffy. But how to interpret the blue cows on the roundabout at - was it Commercy?

Comments

[artistatlarge.livejournal.com]

This is so astonishingly baroque, you have NO idea how delighted I am that you posted this!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I wish I could offer you more pictures.

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful. Could Durham be persuaded to follow the example, do you think?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

We have the three whicker reindeer who appear Christmas after Christmas, each year a little less white, a little more frayed...

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

That is so cool.

local roundabout stuff

[(Anonymous)]

On the roundabout at Thornley there's the pit pony and cart, of course.
Picture here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bolderbob/2172292276/in/set-72157603642049897/).

Re: local roundabout stuff

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Neat picture. But that's a shame that the saddle and stuff keep disappearing. But still, what a great landmark when someone need to give directions ('you pass the roundabout with the pony and cart...')

Re: local roundabout stuff

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

True; we have sculpture on roundabouts and decorative planting on roundabouts - but not sculpted planting!