After another quick wander around the town, mainly in search of a postcard to send Jill, the librarian at my school in Australia, I began the leg of my journey to Chester. However before I could get away I had to wait for no less than 40 minutes while the woman parked behind me to come back from what ever took her so long and move her car! I had parked across the road from my B&B in a small parking area beneath the town clock. Parking is clearly at a premium as it seems to be everywhere in the UK, and no one apparently thinks anything of blocking in others as they would be ‘just a minute!’ Hmmm… Good thing I wasn’t in a hurry and was in the mood to be patient and gracious!
I began my journey north, and enjoyed wandering slowly along the twisty ‘B’ roads. The sweetest thing I cam across was a little rickety wooden toll bridge! It cost me the princely sum of 50p, collected by a little old man, for the privilege of having just crossed his bridge – a little cheaper than the Dartford Crossing!
As I was driving along I came across a sign advertising a nearby castle managed by English Heritage. Not holding our much hope that it would be open in February, I turned off and made my way to the car park. To my pleasant surprise it was opened and I made the first use of my English Heritage membership to get in for free. Stokesay Castle was very small and virtually ruined, but enough of the interior woodwork remained to make it really interested. It was snowing lightly which made it pretty cold (enough of the numb ears for heaven’s sake!). The nearby church was open and I quite enjoyed wandering through it.
I arrived in Chester late in the afternoon and again made my way to the tourist information centre to find a map. Chester was the hardest of the places I visited to navigate, but I found my way to my guesthouse eventually. I hadn’t really planned to see much of Chester as I was really only here so I could pop up to Liverpool on the train the next morning so I could see a performance of Dr Faustus at the Liverpool Playhouse.
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