A little guide about French tourist road signs that you need, if you are planning a trip to France!
On of the thing I realized during my latest road trip in France, is how many different types of road signs there are. I already knew how much fabulous heritage sites France has to offer! I just didn’t realize how these were indicated on the roads.
It also made me think that it must be really hard for non French speakers to find their way in such a maze. So I decided to create a little guide to help! Because that’s what I do! And because I’m French!
Some background info on road signs
I won’t cover in this guide, the usual traffic signs. These are pretty standards in Europe and most of the World or at least, have very close similarity. It is fairly easy to understand when the road is winding, when to slow down, where there is a traffic light, etc.
There are of course distinctive traffic signs. In Europe, you’ll find signs that tell you where there are deers & boars ; in Australia, those for kangaroos & koalas and in the US, they are for bears & moose. OK those are shortcuts! But you know what I mean.
So generally, traffic signs have been made to transcend language barrier, to make roads as safe as possible for everyone.
But that isn’t the case for tourist road signs & touristic sights! Yes, the brown color signs had been adopted widely. Yet, at least in France, those signs are not always easy to understand.
French tourist road signs
Generally, places of interest, will be blessed with a brown sign. This was apparently a French ‘invention’, which grew in popularity across Europe.
But it can be confusing, because 50 shades of brown are being used. So the lighter brown shades can sometimes be confused with the darker shades of yellow used for services’ signs or some of the orange shades used for hotels and restaurants. The type of signs are usually different in shape but it still is a bit confusing.
In addition to its distinctive color, a tourist road sign will usually show an ideogram, which is supposed to tell you what type of interesting place it is pointing you to.
That’s where it gets really tricky. Some of those ideogram may be visually good looking but you may still have no idea what it points to. I sure don’t always get them!
So, because the ideogram may not be clear enough, a brown sign will usually also indicate, with words, what you should visit. It may be an ‘Eglise du XIIème siècle“, or maybe some “Vestiges Romains” or maybe simply a “pont“.
Yes, those indications are in French… of course!
And finally, some places add their own signs, which may not be brown at all. On my last road trip, I sure was thankful for those unofficial road signs when I got lost!
So I though that, if all those signs made me scratch my head, then they probably give headaches to foreigners. So, here is my guide!
A guide to French Tourist Road signs
Here is my guide to help you with all those French Tourist road signs, so you don’t miss out on any interesting and beautiful sights!
Please note that this guide does not include the huge artistic brown highway signs because those are completely different.
You can click on the image below and a high definition version of the guide will open in a new window. You can then save it as pdf and print it to have with you, during your next trip.
Hope you like it!
One last note
As indicated above, I didn’t want to make a ‘all traffic signs’ guide because that would have been boring, but there is one thing I must point about speed limits in France. Since 2018, France is testing a reduced speed limit on smaller roads. Speed is now limited to 80 km/hour, instead of 90km/hour.
On my last trip, I found that signs indicating this 80 km/hour speed limit were lacking, to say the least. Seriously, I only saw a handful. So be careful because on all small roads, it’s now mostly the norm.
Quite frankly, it didn’t bother me as I was super happy to drive a bit more slowly and have more time to admire the countryside!
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