Four seasons in Brighton

One of mum's must-see destinations, Brighton, warranted a two-night stay, in order for us to have a full day there. Luckily the weather was decent (we NEVER would have heard the end of it otherwise), but it was all over the place for most of the day.

My Brighton and Hove gallery is up on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646979448782/

We arrived reasonably early, considering that we had a half-hour drive there to start off with. Dad had been to Brighton before, and we REALLY didn't want to pay 4 pounds per hour for parking (which is what it costs on a weekend), so he went off to explore a National Trust property elsewhere.

We started off wandering up and down the beachfront area. The 'beaches' here have been gradually decreasing in quality, Brighton's was basically lots of enormous pebbles. The blue and white striped beach chairs were very photogenic as well:

Brighton Beach

There are two piers in Brighton as well. One burned down nearly a decade ago, while the other is still fully functional as an amusement park. It's very touristy (the second one that is), complete with rollercoasters and merry-go-rounds, but you still get really good views back towards Brighton:

The piers of Brighton

Once that was done, we headed inland, towards the Royal Pavilion. Unfortunately there were no photos from inside, so mum went inside (this being her main reason for being in England), and I cruised around for a bit over half an hour to pass the time, taking photos of the outside of the building and the area. I even caught some close-up photos of a squirrel:

Royal Pavilion and park

We then headed to (or rather through) The Lanes, a querky shopping area. Mum stopped and went inside Choccywoccydoodah, which is some famous chocolate/cake-making shop with its own TV shop. The cakes were of seriously impressive calibre, with a matching price tag:

A cake from Choccywoccydoodah

From there, I went down to the beachfront for a 'typical Brighton lunch' of really average fish and chips. By this time, the weather had gone from fluffy to light grey clouds, to sunshine, to a sun shower, back to sunshine. It had started to cloud over with really dark clouds, which ended up being quite spectacular when we made a quick stop to take photos of the bathing boxes further west of Brighton:

The clouds roll in towards the bathing boxes

We ended up going back east, along quite a few coastal towns, with some spectacular white cliffs. We're going to see 'the' white cliffs in Dover, but this part of the coast was very scenic as well:

The white cliffs of... Brighton?

We were originally trying to find somewhere to eat - we ended up going into another town and eating at a Thai restaurant. Tomorrow we'll go further north to London for three days. The end is in sight! Until then.