Today, my friend Linda and I decided to take a day trip to the beach side town of Brighton on the southern coast of England. It was a wonderful day, so here’s my recount of the journey.
We started early in the day to get as much time in as possible. It’s only about a one-hour train ride to Brighton so we got there about 9:00 in the morning. We were very worried because for the rest of the morning, it was very overcast, cloudy, foggy and rainy. It wasn't pleasant, but we were up for it. We left the train station and walked to our first attraction, The Royal Pavilion, which is this huge castle that looks like the Taj Majal and was the vacation home of King George in the 1800s. We paid to go in and took the extensive audio tour around. It was very impressive and one of the coolest palaces I’ve seen in Europe. The entire inside was done entirely in Chinese décor and design, which was very cool. Everything was very lavish, with huge chandeliers encompassing menacing dragons. King George lived a very extravagant life, which made the whole thing very cool. The dining hall was especially impressive with a huge grand table and chandelier. I would recommend this palace. It was absolutely gorgeous and surrounded by beautiful gardens on the outside.
When Queen Victoria came to power, she sold the palace to the city of Brighton, so its been resorted and remains the only palace not owned by the State.
By the time we left the palace the town has begun to look livelier and more shops and stuff were open. We immediately went to coast, because that was the main thing we wanted to see. We explored Brighton Pier, which was very similar to the pier at the Isle of Wight, with a huge gambling facility, mini golf and traditional amusement park rides, none of which we rode because they were a bit expensive and we weren’t there to ride rides. The pier was nice and we explored further later.
Getting pretty hungry, we both wanted fish and chips on the beach because seaside towns have the best fish and chips. We went to this hole-in-the-wall looking place that was highly recommended by the guidebook we had. It was by far the best fish and chips I’ve had this trip! We were thoroughly satisfied with our fish and chips experience. By this time, the sky had cleared up, the sun had come up and it became warm. We were amazed. Despite my optimism that it would clear up, neither Linda or myself believed me, so the fact that it became a beautiful day amazed both of us.
We took a short walk up and down one of the three-tiered boardwalks before finding a cozy spot of the beach to sit down and pull out the books and iPods we both had brought. The beach was entirely made of pebbles that were surprisingly comfortable and amazed both of us at the shear amount of them. It was nice enough for us to strip off some of our layers and enjoy the atmosphere for a while.
We then got some carnival-themed dessert and walked most of the length of the coast while eating. We took a nice long walk and got to thoroughly explore the beach. It was beautiful. Afterwards, getting tired after a long day, we sat again and enjoyed the atmosphere. After we had gotten all our beach ambitions out of the way, we headed back in the direction of the train station and explored some of the littler shops, but neither one of us bought anything.
Brighton surprised me a bit because it was much more of the city than I expected. Opposed to some of the small towns I’ve been to that are very quaint and quiet with cute little shopping streets, Brighton didn’t have much of that, but the beach and coast was beautiful. Brighton had many busier streets with busier people. Despite that, I really loved Brighton. All the gardens we walked through were beautiful and getting to relax on the beach was a huge treat. Walking on a beach was a treat. I thoroughly enjoyed my Saturday excursion to Brighton.
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