Belated, but hey…too bad I don’t have one of the Lake District. So much for this being a complete journal of my doings :)
I went to Brighton on a day trip during the bank holiday weekend. CB (my friend from Chicago) went too…the weather was mild at best, with some chilly winds thrown in, and the sun constantly darting between clouds. Still, it was nice, with the exception of the famed Brighton beach, which turned out to be a massive bed of egg-sized pebbles. Not discouraged, several people were spotted lying on the pebbles sun-bathing. In the cold. Under the clouds. These English are crazy.
The famous Brighton Royal Pavilion was truly bizarre: built by George the VI, it was a farmhouse at first and then gradually became more and more grand as his estate grew. The decor really borders on gaudy, and for some reason reminded me of the Chicago Theatre on State Street.
The coolest part of Brighton are ‘the lanes’, a network of criss-crossing streets that make up the ‘hip’ part of town. It’s mostly a lot of shops (selling a surprising amount of designer wear…I don’t know how people afford it, especially in little towns like Brighton) and cafes, with some clubs thrown in. We had a really good time walking through them and stopping every once in a while at a cafe.
I find it interesting, BTW, that each of these provincial towns features an outlet mall. In Keswick (the town in the Lake District I visited) there was a New Balance outlet store, apparently because the New Balance shoe factory is somewhere around there. In Brighton, there’s a full-fledged outlet mall next to the pier, with Calvin Klein, Reebok and T.M. Lewin among others. So anyway, we respectfully treated that as a tourist attraction and gave it our full attention for half an hour or so :)
(I’m pleased to say I only bought track pants and socks. Half price!)
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