They are digging up the road just on the bridge near my apartment. There are plenty yellow signs warning ‘Route Barree a 100 metres’ and a sign pointing left indication ‘Deviation’. Why do people not believe these signs? You can clearly see a massive coned off area encircling an enormous digger machine and yet people continue to drive straight ahead as if the signs are lying or they are expecting some kind of parting of the red seas miracle to occur. Apart from the extra traffic noise (as the detour runs straight past me) it adds a certain je ne sais quoi to my evening glass of wine on the balcony as I watch the traffic drive forward, look right and left hoping for some other escape route, and then have to turn around. The strangest sight so far was this morning when the crazily named ‘Frogbus’ (a brilliant bus link between Perpignan Train Station and Girona Airport) did exactly the same thing as all the other optimistic drivers. It was particularly bizarre as it had no reason to be travelling along this particular stretch of road in the first place!
On a related note, I had arranged to meet a friend for coffee in a town called Thuir, just 10 minutes drive away. I took the normal road and travelled for the usual 10 minutes with the train-line on my right, heading for the roundabout, when, out of the blue there was a large yellow sign with the horrible message ‘Route Barree’ - but no other clues! No prior warning, no helpful deviation signs. Apart from doing a 3-point turn (which has never been one of my strong points) and travelling back the way I came for another 10 minutes, the only possible solution seemed to be to take the road to the left. It was a bit narrow but I (and an entourage of 4 other cars) followed it until we came to a complete dead end. I am proud to say I have learned some new hand signals!!!
