Wow ! Another roundabout ...

Honestly, its not that I’m mad about roundabouts.

But after posting the last message I thought that there was nothing to stop me walking out of Saint Palais and taking a few photos of the end of my road.

Again with a bypass the D933 no longer runs through the centre of this town and like Sauveterre it's a recent "improvement". In quotes because shops in town particularly think its a bad thing not to have traffic driving through the town. The big test will be this summer.

Anyway back to the roundabout. I'd honestly never thought about this before but roundabouts as still photographs really are great. They show a choice fixed forever in time. In a fork in the road there's the question "Do I take the left or the right". These roundabouts have more options.

In a morning, I arrive from the road on the right. There's a difficult to see right turn to a shop called Espace Copie Bureautique and a few houses and then another right into Saint Palais. Further round and to the left on this photo is the road onto the bypass and onto Saint Jean Pied de Port. The road below where I took the photo, comes up the hill to Behasque and across to the Soule and Mauleon. Its another and very different Basque province.

I’ve got a choice. To get to work I can go though Saint Palais or head onto the bypass, staying on the D933 and then turn off at the next roundabout. Oooh more photo opportunities - yes and there is one more roundabout on this road, the best of the lot,  and thats it.

And this next photo is the bypass. I wish I'd worked out photography already. On this photograph you should see the rolling valleys of the Basque Country and the snow topped peaks of the Pyrennes mountains in the distance. If you click on the photo you should be able to zoom in.

Oh and I nearly forgot. Walking out a km of Saint Palais to the roundabout, I came across someone walking who asked me the way to the "Maison de franciscains". Hearing the accent I asked if she was English she said yes but I suspect she was American (or from New Zealand and I seem to have a problem dinguishing the accents). I told her first on the left after the bridge, but I saw her looking lost in the centre of town later on as I was driving past.

Its a strange thing walking along road used only by cars, you feel that you're making a spectacle of yourself - I'm going to have problems getting used to it I think.