Day Trip: Brighton

Today I went on a day tour to the southern coast of England with my roommates Anna, Danielle, Clare, and Jill. We booked through International Friends, which had been recommended to us by CAPA. The drive is approximately an hour and a half, and we traveled by van because the tour group was fairly small; in total, there were six international tourists, five CAPA girls, our guide, and the driver.

Brighton is a seaside resort town due south of London. Technically, it is now referred to as the city of Brighton and Hove. I had heard several things about Brighton, and the image I had of it in my head was fairly specific: a gaudy pier, a pebbled beach, and counterculture similar to Camden Town. Luckily for me, and for my readers, there is much, much more to Brighton than I had imagined.

The van unloaded us by the pebble beach and the main pier. I was immediately assaulted by powerful winds and light rain, and my friends and I were totally unprepared. We had one raincoat and two umbrellas between the five of us, and no heavy sweaters. However, we clutched our thin cardigans around our frail bodies, pulled our scarves tightly around our necks, fought to keep our umbrellas open until they were inverted, and soldiered on. This is England, after all. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

Our tour guide huddled us in a corner under an awning at the beginning of the pier while we waited to see if the rain would pass. It didn’t. Realizing that it wouldn’t do to waste our time shivering on the pier, the group agreed to make a dash for the Royal Pavilion and take shelter inside.

The Royal Pavilion, as you can see from the picture above, was built in an Indian architectural style when exoticism in art was becoming popular as a result of imperial expansion. It looks like an Indian palace transported to Britain, and according to our tour guide, it is the only building of its kind in the UK. The ornate interior was decorated in a style called chinoiserie, and I was very taken with it. I have seen interior design influenced by Chinese art, and I have seen individual paintings and ceramics from China, but never so many pieces in one place, presented with so much extravagance. I was in awe of the bamboo, the glass lotus flowers, and the gilded dragons! My favorite rooms were the banqueting hall (mostly because of the chandelier) and the state-of-the-art kitchen, but Danielle’s favorite was the sumptuous music room (mostly because of its thick carpet).

It was actually very appropriate that we visited Brighton after Bath because historically both cities boomed after becoming popular with royalty. Bath experienced a boom following a visit from Queen Mary in 1687. She took the waters at the spa to cure her infertility… and gave birth to a son ten months later. Thus, “taking the waters” at the spa became fashionable. During the 1750s, a man called Dr. Richard Russell began to advocate seawater over thermal water as a cure-all. Brighton experienced its boom. I think the history of the two cities gave a nice continuity to our touristy trips.

Anyway, back to the Pavilion at Brighton. The Royal Pavilion was the home of King George IV before he became Prince Regent and ultimately King. Our tour guide, Adam, explained that George had a poor relationship with his father, and moved to Brighton when he was only 21 years old. He met a woman named Maria Fitzherbert, who was majorly off limits as she was both a Catholic and a widow. But the naughty George IV decided to marry her anyway (unofficially), and she remained his mistress for several decades. The prince commissioned the architect John Nash to renovate his Brighton home, and it was super extravagant and awesome (see above). He lived there until Mad King George III (the one who lost America) was declared insane, and therefore unfit to rule, at which point he returned to London to rule as Prince Regent. His father kicked the bucket in 1820, and George IV ruled for ten years as King and then died. Sadly, he only visited Brighton twice during the last seven years of his life. The end.

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Now, being a girl who always does her research, I was aware of the Brighton Food and Drink Festival in September, and of the fact that today was the day of the Chili Festival. Being American, I had envisioned chili con carne – a thick stew with meat and beans, popular in Texas, often served with cornbread… But I had it wrong, friends – this was the Chilli Festival, hosted by Fiery Foods UK, and it was a celebration of any and all foods made with chillies. For whatever reason, chilli has a cult following in the United Kingdom, universally acknowledged to be a land of bland, hearty food. Go figure.

Anyway, the girls and I left the Pavilion and paid £2 to enter the Festival Ground in Victoria Gardens. We were immediately offered free Nando’s chicken and it was delicious. We knew we had come to the right place. We moved from booth to booth, tasting samples of chilli jellies, sauces, and chutneys. A near-death experience (Anna and I being tricked by a sadistic sample-man into eating the hottest sauce my tongue has ever met) impelled us into the Cider Tent, where we gulped down chocolate milk. Anna knows how we like sweets, so she ventured out into the rain for some churros with melted chocolate dipping sauce. Deee-lish. Continuing on in the rain, we pieced together a lunch from more free samples – chicken fajitas, tacos, etc – and listened to a string band. Jill even found a booth offering cupcakes made with chillies and chilli-vanilla ice cream! The festival might even have inspired me to watch the infamous chilli-eating contest aired on BBC, “Pleasure and Pain with Michael Mosley.”

Comfortably full of chilli-flavored foods, the girls and I headed into the North Laines. There were plenty of bohemian, countercultural shops and we were happy to shop there for a while. Only one purchase to report: Anna bought a grey sweater with two cats on it from Mama San. Cats are the latest fad in our flat :)

At 2:30, we climbed back into the van to embark on the second part of the tour: Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters. We drove along the coastline for a while, past rolling green hills dotted with sheep, to reach Beachy Head. Undeterred by the gale force winds, we raced out towards the cliffs for a photo op. From our position, we seemed to be surrounded by the ocean in three directions. 

Beachy Head lighthouse in the background

We are not English, however, and were soon forced into the Beachy Head Country Pub for two glasses of Zinfandel and a diet coke. The ambiance was lovely - "rural charm and rustic character" with candles lit to soften the atmosphere. I should mention that the winds here have destroyed by umbrella, which I thought was fairly sturdy before coming to England. I now understand that I need inclement weather gear of a higher caliber altogether. If you can’t stand intense wind and almost constant light rain, tourism in England may not be for you (ditto the rest of the UK). But, although the good weather was sporadic, our laughter was constant, and that’s what’s important. Travel is all about being opportunistic, and you have to make the best of what you get!

Smile anyway!

After Beachy Head, it was onto the Seven Sisters. The Seven Sisters are a series of chalk cliffs on the Sussex Heritage Coast in South Downs National Park. On the pebble shore were oval rocks made of chalk, collected and used to write our names on stones. I love places of unspoiled natural beauty, and the National Park offered me just that. I’d like to go back and hike the cliffs some day.

This has been a long blog post, I know – now I’m off to plan my Open House hits for tomorrow. I hope everyone else had as enjoyable a day as I did! Cheerio!