The English Riviera...Brighton!

We took a day trip to Brighton this morning. It was so easy! We had to take two tube lines and then the train...but I swear it wasn't bad at all. The trip from London Bridge Station to Brighton is pretty short, too. About an hour.

Brighton is a seaside tourist town, as well as a heavily gay community. I enjoyed it a lot because it had a lot of character. It was kind of a combination of the New Jersey Boardwalk and Boystown in Chicago. It's fairly easy to navigate, too, once you get a map in the Visitors Center in the train station.

One weird thing was that we had to pay 20 pence to go to the bathroom in the train station. I refused to pay so I waited for a restaurant. There's no way I'd ever pay to enter a bathroom unless it was extremely necessary.

Also, there's parts of Brighton that are really cool and other parts that aren't so cool. And you have to walk to the cool parts. But the Brighton Pier is fun. The beach is completely covered in rocks, so be prepared for not walking barefoot. The pier basically resembles a carnival, with junk food and lots of rides. It's a very summer-fun atmosphere.

There's a group back alley streets in Brighton called "The Lanes" that have narrow passageways that lead to different shops and restaurants. There's a ton of jewelry stores, some name brand clothes, and then some fun/funky stores. There are a lot of restaurants, too. We ate at one of the MANY Italian restaurants. I love that portions are smaller in the UK...cuz I can finally finish my plate.

The first place we went to was the Brighton art museum. It was cool, but not the most interesting thing in Brighton. I'd recommend doing that last on a trip to Brighton if you have time.

We also went to the Pavilion, which is an Asian-influenced castle built by George IV on the site of a barn he had a good time at with his mistress. It's really different - the place is decorated with dragons everywhere. They do an audio tour which I recommend. I actually found it interesting, but it's long since the palace is so big. I also recommend getting tea and cherry pie (there's other treats too but I loved the cherry pie) in the Victoria tea room. We sat out on a balcony of the palace and overlooked the grounds. It was an amazing atmosphere.

After the tour of the palace we also went to the grounds and meandered through the English gardens and sat on the lawn. Then, we ate at a Pavilion food stand, where there was a live band playing. It was really fun enjoying the music and people watching. Got to see a lot of gay couples- and one had a two-year-old kid that was dressed ridiculously (red and white striped leggings, patterned wellies, graphic tee, and a fur-lined coat vest). Loved it. Here's a video from the grounds.



My second strange bathroom experience for the day was that there was a male bathroom attendant just chilling in the women's bathroom. Like, he'd just chill and monitor all the women in the bathroom. Also, a woman came in with her 10-ish year old son. Come on...he's a little old for that.

Overall, I liked Brighton because of how eclectic it was. Come with money- there's so many things to do and so many places to shop!