Brighton

After getting a little lost we enjoyed the windy, tree-lined drive down a lesser road to Brighton on Monday, a place Len had been to 30 years ago and I had never been to but had heard lots about. We were warned that with the busy summer holiday traffic there could be delays of up to 2 hours getting to our accommodation especially in the afternoons but we were early enough to avoid this.
By chance we managed to find a parking building very close to the Churchill Brighton, the cheapest guest house that we could find on the internet the night before! Accomodation is so expensive in England generally and especially on the south coast in summer school holidays. Commonly rooms are between $200 - $400 a night so we were very happy to find this one for $79 a night.
They say you get what you pay for so we were not surprised to climb 4 storeys up a narrow, rickety staircase to our tiny, tiny, past it's use-by date room with it's dinky little ensuite and views of all the surrounding close buildings. Debussy is a palace in comparison!
However the double bed which virtually took up the whole room was comfortable and clean with its lovely white sheet and white duvet and the most amazing bonus was that the little fridge in the corner had complimentary drinks and kit-kats! These included 2 bottles of beer, 2 small bottles of wine, 2 cans of coke and 2 waters - amazing as most of the hotels we have stayed in haven't even a fridge let alone complimentary drinks (Yes they were definitely free but we managed to restrict ourselves to just using half of them).

North Laine

The generosity of the drinks offset the unwelcome taste we had in our mouths at having to pay 25 pounds, around $50, for our overnight carparking. At home we can park our bus for 2 days and 2 nights in a camp ground for that with electricity, showers, toilet and cooking facilities all included! You can understand why most Brits holiday in Europe.

However we loved our short stop-over in Brighton - it's a quirky, eclectic, interesting city known as "the Gay Capital of Britain" and like none other I have been to before. So many people and such diversity made our walk along the pebbly beach, down the pier with all it's amusement arcades, through the town and down the Lanes or Laines which have shops along narrow alleyways following the street pattern of the original fishing village, a truly entertaining experience in itself.

Brighton Pavilion

It took us a couple of hours to explore the huge and amazing Royal Pavilion built by George 1Vth early in the 19th century. The outside is a western interpretation on Indian architecture and the inside is lavishly modelled on Chinese architecture and furnishings - very ornate, the huge chandelier over the massive dining table being just one of the features that instantly springs to mind.

Lots of restaurants to choose from in the evening so we picked the busiest one we could see and just had a little wait before a table was free. It was Italian with very reasonable prices so after a pasta dish for Len and a canneloni for me it was time to head back to our attic.