23. Paying the Toll

 Friday is a travelling day and we have left Wales for sunnier skies in England. We are gradually making our way back to London over the next few days. 

We travelled most of the way on the M5 highway which is a very fast-moving and incredibly busy road network. But it’s also really efficient at getting people where they need to be. There are so many big semi-trailers on the road and sometimes there are up to 4 lanes of traffic each way. We have only encountered one toll road since we have been back in England. France had so many but it doesn’t seem to be the English way of doing things. And it is also worth saying that the French toll roads are much cheaper than the English tolls. I’m not sure if I mentioned earlier or not but when we arrived in London our taxi driver was enlightening us on the new rules in place in London. If drivers enter a certain geographical district within London known as the “congestion” district, they have to pay a daily rate. It’s all monitored digitally by one’s license plate. 

We made it to Stratford upon Avon today. There was quite a bit of construction on the last leg of this journey which made the trip longer than necessary. There is also a significant major work project just outside our hotel so that, combined with the pouring rain means we will just be staying in tonight and not go exploring. A good time to reorganize our suitcases for upcoming train travel. This is also a Bank Holiday weekend which could explain why the highways were so busy. A Bank holiday is a day off for most workers so we’re not sure what will be open and closed come Monday. 

As luck or irony would have it, the hotel we are staying at is hosting a Literary Festival. Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be here but the host hotel had a fire so our hotel offered to host the festival instead. It looks like an interesting lineup of speakers for the whole weekend. Seems I just missed Princess Diana’s brother, The Earl of Spencer, who was on until 1:00 pm.