I remember a sign (/signs?) in Southampton sometime a few years back (early 90s I guess) with "Cherbourg" listed amongst other destinartions (e.g. city centre).

Note, this was the town name only, without the ferry symbol, but the signed route did take you the to ferry dock!

Here we have some signs for 'England' as well:

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6370/gb1qq1.jpg

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/7069/gb2cc0.jpg

Newcastle:

http://members.lycos.nl/mavas3/wegen/velsen02.jpg
Lycos NL links upset Google Chrome's malware detection, image changed to link ~Bryn666

And what about this one?

http://dd50.inducks.org/wegen/imgb/b001/n198afghanistan.jpg

(this sign does not exist anymore, but it was fun to see)

I think the London one outside schiphol might have gone too now... Drove past today, and I think road widening has taken place since I last saw it, with gantry based destination signage now...

Somewhere in Gothenburg city centre there's a sign to Frederikshavn with no indication that you need to take a ferry to get there -- it's just in the same font on the same background as, say, a sign pointing to Kungälv or Mölndal would be. If you speak either Swedish or Danish you might have an inkling that something's not as it should be, since -havn is a Danish ending, but otherwise there's absolutely nothing to suggest that Frederikshavn is in a different country or across the water.

I can't remember precisely where it is, otherwise I'd link to it.

I know that particular sign. It is actually guiding motorists around Antwerp - best route to London (and also Ghent, Antwerp and Calais) is via the tunnels under the Schelde to the west of Antwerp rather than the Kennedy Tunnel, while to Paris and Brussels is via the [Belgian] A1 to the east of Antwerp (turn-off to Brussels before the Kennedy Tunnel).

The figure of 525km suggests a northern French - South East Kent crossing, when a Hoek van Holland-Harwich or Oostend-Ramsgate crossing would be less distance, less driving (though more time and more cost given the speed differentials and costs of the different routes).

I'd imagine this RCS assumes that the A4 is fully open from Amsterdam to the Belgian border just north of Antwerp - as other than London via Harwich, you're on the wrong road (the incomplete A4 goes some way to explain the E19's weird route in the Netherlands).

Travelled through the Frankfurter Kreuz (Frankfurt Interchange) recently and I noticed that a number of the cities cited on the direction boards were a considerable distance from Frankfurt:

Basel - 329 km
Munich - 393 km
Cologne - 193 km
Hannover - 413 km

These are not as far as the 525 km noted by JohnnyMo, but are of the same order of magnitude and moreover are all in different directions.

It amuses me that the signage outside the Civitavecchia ferry port in Italy says "Sardegna" rather than "Ferries". This is even more odd considering that (the last time I looked, at least) Sardinia is not the only destination to which you can take a ferry from there!

I drove over the Mont Cenis/Moncenisio pass between France and Italy last summer, and at the final T-junction before leaving France there was a directional sign simply stating "Italie". I found it odd that it did not name an Italian town, because all the signage on the autoroutes bound for Italy indicates "Milano" or "Torino" rather than the name of the country.

I saw a similar sign in Basel - one direction is labeled "Deutschland" and the other "Frankreich".

I'd suspect that the HA would be more likely to use the overhead displays to say something like "Delays on the Champs Elesey , or Road works on the France/German border" .

There are signs from the Berliner Ring towards Poland on the A12 giving the distance to Warsaw - which is around 550km or so from the Ring.

Distances of 600-700km aren't uncommon on signs here, too - for instance, Terespol (on the Polish-Belarusian border) is signed all along the A2 motorway from the German border, as is Korczowa (Polish-Ukrainian) from the Polish-German border. Distances are normally given to where the road terminates - so distances of 600-700km in Poland are ordinary.

(of course, the policy on signing cities abroad is all over the place - signs are appearing for L'viv on the A4, but frequently, only the border crossing is signed and nothing else. For instance - in Poznan - Swiecko, population 180 is signed - and not Berlin or even Frankfurt (Oder))

We of course now have signs stating "SCOTLAND" and "England" (I seem to recall one of them is capitalised and the other isn't) on the A74(M)/M6 now. Once you get into Scotland the signs revert to "The North", and likewise "The South" once you're in England.

I was surprised to see the M4 westbound at J12 Reading signed "South Wales" only, with no mention of either "Bristol", "West" or "South West".

"South Wales" has been the forward control destination on the M4 from at least Reading to the Severn Bridge as long as I can ever remember (ie: late 70s). "The South West" is more in line with the M3 / A303 or M5 south of Almondsbury.

Odd, considering that on the approach to Almondsbury 3 lanes syphon traffic off to the M5, while a mere 2 continue on towards the Severn bridges. Although I suppose that could be to cope with relatively local rush-hour traffic, the vast majority of which (I'd estimate 80%+) seems to leave the M4 there rather than continue towards Wales.

Here is a link to the longest distance marker i could think of quickly - from one end of the A8 to the other (Munich - Berlin) - 580km (362.5miles)...