We got up at 5am on Saturday morning in order to make our 7am coach to Brighton with Sarah (who stayed over the night on our couch). Of course, the Central line was closed for the weekend due to maintenance work (bastards) which made it nearly impossible to get to Victoria Coach Station, so we missed our bus. Note, these buses leave hourly and are never full, so why they can't just do an open day return ticket by default makes no sense to me.
Anyway, we caught the 8am instead and paid an extra £30. I always think it's great when you have a problem and you're getting stressed and want to kill someone and then realise that you can just pay some money and the problem goes away. This was one of those situations where I was just so happy to get on the bus and get underway.
It's a 2 hour bus ride to Brighton and everyone seemed to just sleep through it, except for me who was wide awake and staring out the windows. Just so we're clear, I parked this blog entry and have just continued it on Wednesday night after a long shift at work, so sorry for the disjointedness.
Anyhow, we arrived at Brighton just after 10am and stepped out of the bus onto the small piece of tarmac that makes the coach station, with a clear view of the Brighton Pier. The intense, blustery wind immediately chilled us to the bone, but it was easy to ignore with so much to explore.
We started with the pier, which is probably the first thing people think of when they hear Brighton. I hope so anyway. It has a reputation for having sideshow attractions and arcades and it certainly didn't let us down on that front. It's a lot bigger than I imagined, with restaurants and a roller coaster finding space on it.
From the pier we next walked along the beach, which is rough and pebbly and not all that nice for walking and lounging; not on a day like that anyway. Still, the odd local was out walking their dogs and what have you. We soon turned inland in search of the fabled 'laines' - the jumble of character shops that make up the old part of town.
We found an out of the way street on the far side of town with some incredible junk stores. I don't quite know how so much amazing junk could possibly exist. I'd go so far to say that it's not actually junk, it's just assembled and displayed in such a way to make one think it is.
Then we had coffee. Londoners could learn a thing or two about café culture, civility and coffee making from their neighbours to the south. The café we went to doubled as a furniture store and seemed to be patronised by the local gay community. Or perhaps it's just that Brighton is the gay capital of the UK. Either way, I take it as a sign we were onto a good thing, which was proved when I tried the coffee and toasted sandwich. Both were very good and very familiar, but not something I'd expect so close to London.
We checked out the Royal Pavilion next, which is the next most iconic feature of the town, being a faux Indian palace erected by some King or other as a pleasure palace. It really is an absurd and majestic piece of work. We didn't go inside as it costs £10 a person, so we'll have to come back later.
From there we wandered through town and to the various shopping streets that make up the Lanes and the North Laine. The difference between the two is that the Lanes is an area of tightly packed small shops along little alleys and North Laine is more an area of street markets and shops and graffiti'd back streets all coming together to make my favourite shopping area in the world.
We had a beer at a local bar called the Dorset and recuperated before heading out in search of some fish and chips, which is a bit of a local cliche. We ended up at a place called the Fish Bowl which served us up a huge plate of different style haddock fillets. It was a bit much for the two of us to handle, but still some of the best we've had here.
By this time it was getting rather late, so we packed up and headed for the coach stop to catch our bus home, utterly exhausted and ready for bed.
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