Travel Diary Britain ’06 – 7th entry – 23rd July 2006

What awaited me this morning was the long drive from Torquay to Brighton. I had a slight headache and didn’t find the prospect all to nice anyway but when it then started to rain as I drove off I was proper pissed off to say the very least.
‘There goes my day on the beach in Brighton’, I thought, wondering what was there to do in Brighton on a rainy day but by the time I reached the city some of the clouds had dispersed and even the sun came peeping through. As we say in Austria, ‘When angels decide to go on an outing the sun will shine and the clouds go pouting’… I was delighted.
So, first thing I do is get rid of the car and take a nice walk around the city centre. Now, Brighton’s definitely a larger city again. I felt this when I walked through the streets which were mostly congested and couldn’t exude the same homey feeling that the street of Newquay had done but then again the city was also richer in sights. After some twenty minutes I reached the park surrounding the Royal Pavilion, a small palace built by King George IV. In the years before his regency in the intriguing ‘Hindoo’ style, a free interpretation of Indian and generally oriental architecture.
The whole thing looks as if it had been taken straight out of one of the fairy tales in 1001 nights… Anyway, a rather rare specimen of this style in Britain, I think. Of course I took my time admiring the building and taking a fair number of photos. When my appetite for rare architectural styles was then satisfied I moved on to the Brighton Marina, the true attraction of Brighton. For two miles or more the beach stretches here and unlike at the beach in Newquay, here the waters were pretty calm and people could be seen everywhere going into the water and so I followed their example and finally went for my long swim in the Atlantic Ocean I’d been yearning for.
I was happy beyond imagination! In fact I liked it so much that I neglected my original plans to see the interior of the Royal Pavilion and stayed at the beach for several hours, going for a swim, drying in the sun and repeating the whole procedure over and over again...
At around four I decided that I’d enjoyed the sea enough and that it was time for a stroll along the promenade. To me it is the beach promenade that provides most of the holiday feeling there. It’s just like an ongoing fun fair and there are carousels and other rides, arcades and food stalls – just the right thing for a decent spending spree! This is the reward for being diligent throughout the year and living a truly economical lifestyle!! It does pay off!
After a while I got hungry and decided to have some seafood and of course there was much on offer. In the en I settled for a pot of jellied eel and for a dessert I had some Belgian chocolate waffles, hmm…
Then I wanted to buy some souvenirs, I saw a hand-painted model of a ship and one of a lighthouse which I really liked but I had to go find a cash machine and as I came back the store had closed! Curses! Well, anyway, I continued my stroll to the Brighton Pier and back and after getting rid of some excess baggage I went to the nearby Odeon and bought a ticket for the 9pm screening of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ and spent the next two hours in the invitingly cool inside of the cinema. And now I’ll get changed and walk off in search of a disco!

Brighton Palace

This beach is highly recommendable for basking in the sun

Brighton Pier

...where I had jellied eel

...and Belgian chocolate waffels. Yummy!

Some blokes doing Capoeira at the seaside

Dusk in Brighton