Soaking up the Rays in Brighton

It might sound twee but after visiting Brighton I felt much brighter than when I went there. Obviously the brilliant sunshine helped, but so did the quintessential English seaside experience; sea, the pier, fish and chips, seagulls.

I hadn’t been to Brighton since I was a kid and came here with my sister and cousin – we made a beeline for Burger King and The Body Shop to buy lipstick in the Sales, as we always did. Well my interests have changed somewhat since the age of 12 so this time we headed for The Lanes. These are small alleys containing cute shops – many of which were independent and unique – my favourites were a shop selling cool fairy lights and another shop selling clothes for dogs!

We also walked the short walk to the Royal Pavilion. You can’t miss this building as it looks like the Taj Mahal! Not what you might expect to see in Brighton! This was apparently a former royal residence, built for the King in the olden days as a seaside home. Not bad hey?!

Of course my favourite part of Brighton is the pier. The Brighton Pier is probably the biggest pier I’ve been on (bigger than the Santa Monica pier, which it reminded me of). It starts with amusement arcades and blends into a large funfair, connected by ice cream and candy floss shops, fish and chip shops, souvenir stalls selling everything from toys to henna tattoos.

Considering the funfair is on a pier (ie. over the sea!) it was pretty impressive. It had the usual cute funfair rides like helter-skelter, dodgems, etc, but also had impressive additions like a log flume water ride! When I came to Brighton as a kid I remember one of the lights set fire, which made me wary of all funfairs from then on! But I’m glad to see that the pier seemed to be going strong and kids and adults alike were having a great time!

We enjoyed some fish and chips on the pier, followed by candy floss later on. Not the healthiest I know, but it was definitely the right thing to do! 🙂

I’ve heard that when people go to Brighton, they love it so much that they never leave. I can entirely see why this is! Brighton seems to have everything – cool shops, vast beaches, a cute marina and proximity to London. It is also known for having a large Gay population, which I would hope means it is a very liberal, tolerant town as well. It seems like a lovely place to live, and it was certainly a fabulous place to visit for a weekend!

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