Itinéraire Déconseillé

Route not advised. This sign says that recreational vehicles are advised not to use this street. The reason is that the street is very narrow and negotiating it in a large vehicle would be difficult. It's hard enough in a small car.

Route Not Advised.

The center of St.-Aignan dates from the middle ages and the streets are small, twisty, and barely wide enough for a small car. They are mostly one-way and parking is very limited. The main square of town serves as a parking lot every day except Saturday when it's taken over by the market vendors.

There is a main street through town, one way southerly. The northbound traffic is routed around the outside of the center on a little ring road that follows what I presume to be the footprint of the former wall around the town.

There are three traffic signals in St.-Aignan. Two are on the main road along the river, at the bridge and at the point where the little ring road intersects it. The third is on the ring road, about a block up from the river.

Language note: In French, accents are optional on upper-case letters. That's why you see the accents in my title, but not on the sign. When words are spelled in all-caps and not accented, you just have to know how to pronounce the word without benefit of the accents. See, once again, how easy French is?

An interesting side note: The pictogram above is normally used to indicate a spot where RVs can dump their, um, waste tanks. Normally there's an arrow below the vehicle indicating the direction of flow of the waste into a below-ground tank. But for the itinéraire déconseillé use, the parts of the sign below the vehicle are missing or whited out.

Ok, I promise: Tomorrow's post will have actual buildings in it!