Roundabouts in Europe are amazing things!
But first, what is a roundabout? Depending on where you live they are also known as rotaries, traffic circles, Kreisverkehr (German), Rotonda (Spanish), or Rond-Point (French). So I hope I don’t I need any more explanation than that!
According to Wikipedia, there are examples that date back to the 1700’s. But using the Google NGram viewer, I found the word “roundabout” first came into print around 1576.
But this is not a history lesson – it is a blog post! The key point is that especially in Europe roundabouts are typically places for the villages and communities to install truly breathtaking artwork.
I took this snap of a roundabout just outside of the village of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, buried deep within the Savoie region of France:
This village is famous for Opinel knives, not for bicycles – but many bicycle races do pass through this village every year, so perhaps that was the motivation for this piece?