Crossing the border

On Tuesday we crossed a border. It's the part of the border between our département, le Loir-et-Cher, and a neighboring one, l'Indre. Of course, we cross these borders all the time and usually see a very contemporary sign welcoming us to the new département. But I've never noticed this old version of the limit marker.

The Indre on the left, the Loir-et-Cher (where we live) on the right.

It's on a very small road out in the country that doesn't get much traffic, except for locals and tractors. We stopped to take pictures of a field of poppies and noticed it. Otherwise, we might have missed it altogether. It stands about a meter tall. The inscription carved on the rounded top says, "Limite de départe." They didn't have room for the -ment, apparently.

A closer look at the inscription.

I wonder if this would be called une borne like the little distance markers you often see alongside French roads. Those are red or yellow and white and indicate how many kilometers you are from the town you're headed toward and/or which route you are on. They're much smaller than this one.