LEZ, ULEZ & other peculiarities

On over 2,200 km of the journey home, quite a bit can happen. Some things are planned, while others are less so.

The spontaneous stop at Hadrian's Wall wasn't planned in advance, but the small detour was definitely worth it. It is a very charming area with lovely hiking and biking trails. While not much remains of the wall itself, one can still easily imagine its course.

Since we were traveling home via Dover, we also managed a quick visit to Canterbury. As the seat of the Anglican Church, the cathedral certainly doesn’t need to hide from its Catholic counterparts. There’s so much to discover.

Less planned was our entry into the (Ultra) Low Emission Zone in London. We had heard of it, but we weren’t sure exactly where it was and how it worked. Typically, one would take the M25 motorway to bypass Greater London. Unfortunately, part of it was closed during our drive, and against better judgment, we accepted the navigational suggestion and fell into 'the trap'.

After reading up on the regulations and especially after hearing the horror stories of extremely high fines of up to several thousand pounds, we felt quite uneasy.

There is a possibility to pay the fees up to 3 days after the fact, but this requires an emission check of the vehicle, which can take up to 10 days. Without the check, a fee of £312.50 must be paid, as the highest pollutant class is assumed.

Moreover, due to an error on their website, it is not possible to register for payment, and the app can only be installed in the UK 'Google Apps' space. You feel quite helpless. With a VPN and the phone set to British language settings, we managed to install the app at least. We were also able to submit the registration data for verification. Let’s see how this turns out.

After that, we quickly headed home from Calais with stops in Belgium and Germany, and we arrived safely.