The travels of Tim and Megan: Brighton

Brighton

On Saturday 26 March, we (finally) made it down to Brighton for a day trip. Brighton is one of the UK's most popular and famous tourist destinations. It became a destination for London day-trippers after the arrival of railway in 1841. Modern Brighton forms the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove, which has a population of around 156,000, so it was a lot larger than we expected!

We caught a train from London Bridge to Brighton, which took around an hour, and we arrived at the seaside town at about 11.30am. We headed straight to a cafe called "Bill's" that had been recommended to us and we had an amazing brunch. The food was delicious, the service was superb and the cafe was decorated with wall displays of all sorts of food that you could buy. Bill dabbles in a bit of everything, from jams and marmalades to lollies and Easter eggs!!

After lunch we enjoyed wandering the streets checking out quirky antique and second hand shops and street markets, while enjoying entertainment from various street performers. The highlight was a dog on a skateboard (see photo below). The dog not only rode on the skateboard (with two legs on the board), but also pushed itself along the road with its other two legs. It was awesome. Brighton is home to a lot of young, alternative people (there are two universities and a medical school), so the town has a very vibrant and exciting feel to it...and some interesting clothes and hairstyles.

We headed for the beach via some more shops and we were delighted to see the famous (and somewhat tacky) seaside and enormous Brighton Pier. The beach is covered with large stones rather than sand or pebbles - not ideal - but that's how they do it over here. Brighton Pier, however, is very fun. It must be around 200m long and it is covered with shops, food stalls, pubs and restaurants, a full-on "fun fair" / amusement park and an indoor games arcade.

We had a fantastic time playing in the games arcade. We didn't win any of the giant soft toys or other prizes, but we had a lot of fun. We walked right to the end of the pier and debated riding on the log fume (but didn't want to get wet) and the carousel, which had giant galloping roosters you could ride on (but were a bit shy). We did, however, place some bets on the mechanical horse races, got an ice cream and relaxed in the deck chairs looking off the side of the pier. It was a lovely warm day, until the wind got up late in the afternoon.

When it started to get chilly, we left the pier and headed to "The Lanes" - a collection of little alleyways full of boutique shops and upmarket restaurants and bars. We enjoyed having a poke around there for a while and then we headed to a pub called The Cricketer for a drink.

We briefly returned to Bill's Cafe to buy a huge chocolate rooster Easter egg (see photo below)! Then we headed to a cocktail bar that Megs had discovered, called The Medicine Chest. It was a really fun underground bar decorated as an old style pharmacy. It had old medicine bottles and sets of wooden drawers around the walls and the cocktails were delicious. We had a few drinks there and then we went for dinner at a traditional fish n chip restaurant called Bankers, before walking back to the train station and heading home to London.

We had a really fun and interesting day and we didn't even have time to visit Brighton's main draw card, the Royal Pavilion. So we may even return for a second visit!