Oh France, the confussion you create.. and you too Italy!

Here are some signs.  It depends on the direction from which you come to see certain city names displayed.  Its as if they just put up which ever one they want.  "Hey, Jaque! What do you think about this one that says Byorn?  Sure, why not.  I like the letter B!" 

So imagine this, an all too common undertaking:  you want to get to a particular city and like most, you want to take the road to get there.  Fairly normal.  So you look on your map, find the road names neccesary to take you to your destination, and try to follow them.  Sounds pretty straight forward I'd say.  Well my friends, not so in France, nor Italy.  Nope, instead what they do is post signs (sometimes) leading to some small podunk village either between or after  your destination of choice. If you cant think of the difficulties this poses, the following explanations came from dumbfounded experience.

Your in Saint Bob, you want to go to Crescent, which is about 50 Km away.  On the map you have to take roads S 77 and then S10.  Easy.  So you look for a sign that reads "S77" and will go in the direction that leads east.  Well your not going to find it.  Instead you'll see signs that point to Jaque, Minot, Blu, or whatever else is out there.  This goes to say that youll need to know every single village in between you and your destination.  But in the midst of this chaos, they may be so friendly as to put up a tiny lil marker with the actual road name S 77, but only 8 km down the road letting you know whether or not youve taken the right path.  Oh its funny. and also, Milo de mar is very much a different citiy than Milo del Mar than it is from Milo a mar and Milo da mar.  Youll defenitly want to watch out for that before climbing, oh lets say a hughundo mountain hill only to enjoy the ride back down, the same way you went up.


Its like this, if you go off the main highways, your going to get lost, forienge and domestic alike. I don't know how many times i saw French driving stopped  at a crossroad with the same "you've got to be kidding me" look on their face. In one of my many wrong turns, this time in italy, i found a woman that actually seemed to know what she was talking about, at least from what i could gather without really knowing what she was saying.  i pointed to the map, tried to pronounce the name, and wala! she started spitting out villages i would have to pass along the way.  don't know if it was on her own accord or she was keen to notice the "are you really talking to me that fast and in Italian?" in my eyes, but she fetched a piece of paper and wrote down not one or 3 or 5 villages, but about 8 or 9.  Wow, miss one of these signs are your a goner. 


Its times like these I thank heavens for American logic and reasoning.  Actual marked road names, where do they come up with this stuff.