Random thoughts of a rapidly ageing Englshman who wishes he was retired and living in Fance

Friday, 6 March 2009

All Roads Lead.......

Have you tried to get anywhere recently? Of course you have and you'll have come across at least one of the zillions of sets of temporary traffic lights that blight this sceptered isle, this demi paradise...sorry had a Shakespearian moment.

But its true isn't it? Everywhere you go there are roadworks - widening, modifying and building new ones. You'd think we'd be used to it by now, but we never seem to be. Somehow we're conditioned not to expect them or at least grumble about them.

Did you know that in Napoleon's day a whole fifth of Finnistere was actually roadway? Well muddy track for the most part but definitely used for getting from A to B.
A fifth. Imagine that. We could have 20 lane motoways. I suppose some modern housing estates might come close, but a whole departement the size of an English county? Wow.


I bet this road hasn't changed much since Napoleon's day.
And apart form the tarmac perhaps this one hasn't either.....what a way to go to work!



There were so many roads from Beauvais to Ameins that 6 of them are still in existance. Apparantly you could shout from one to the next - who says dual carridgeways are a 20th century thing? I expect the traffic moved about as fast as that on the M25 as well.
Still you get rush hour everyhere - even Le Grand Pressigny!!!!!

1 comment:

Jean said...

French roads are just so much better than roads in the UK. You can go for miles on the D-roads without seeing another car. The journey to the ferry is just sheer hell the nearer to Dover you get and yet when you hit the autoroute at Calais, all the traffic just melts away. Also French drivers are much less aggressive than British drivers. They daydream a lot but cause less aggro on the whole.