Britain

Gettin around Britain

In Britain, we still calculate distances in miles and we still drive on the left. Though just to be difficult, there is one road in London, near the Savoy Hotel, where you have to drive on the right! Many of Britain’s roads follow ancient Roman roads and you have to pay at some old told bridges dating back hundreds of years. In London, we still have red double-decker buses and black London cabs. Before they can work, London cab drivers still have to spend about 18 months learning all about the streets of London to get ‘the knowledge’.
However, not everything about British transport is as it used to be fifty years ago. There are now more than 25 million cars on our roads so traffic jams are common on Britain’s motorways, like the infamous M25 around London. And even though we invented the railways, our train network is not a terribly good state; you get delays caused by unpredictable events such as ‘leaves on the lines’ in autumn. To improve the situation in transport, the government is investing a lot of money in the railways and coming out with ‘new’ ideas like toll motorways and congestion charges in major cities like London.
Despite all of this, there are some fantastic ways of getting around the country and enjoying yourself at the same time. For example, you can go on a cycling holiday. Britain has thousands of miles of quiet country lanes and forest tracks which are ideal for keen cyclists. There are even more footpaths for walking holidays from one end of the country to the other, like Offa’s’ Dyke Footpath on the lovely borders of England and Wales. For the more adventurous, there are plenty of places for horse riding and canoeing as well as hang-gliding, paragliding and ballooning.
If you want something a bit safer and less energetic, go on a narrow boat. Britain has a great network of canals, a lot of them going through spectacular countryside. Another relaxed option is to go on one of Britain’s many steam railways like the Severn Valley Railway or the Snowdon Railway which goes up the highest mountain in Wales. Just sit back and enjoy it!