A trip to Brighton

Despite a weather forecast of wind and rain, we caught the 8.18am train from London Bridge station for a day at Brighton, an hour's trip on the train. We arrived just before our 10am booking to visit the Royal Pavilion and took advantage of some early sun to take photos of the amazing domes and the restored Regency garden.

The Royal Pavilion was the seaside palace of George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria. Under George, as Prince of Wales and later as Regent, the orginal farmhouse was developed into the Marine Pavilion by 1800 and then by the 1820s into the grand oriental design of John Nash. In the mid 1840s Queen Victoria decided to sell the property and it was stripped of all its lavish decoration and furniture. It was purchased by the Town of Brighton in 1850 and much restoration work has been undertaken since the 1970s to restore it to its Regency splendour.

Photography was not permitted inside the house but hopefully the following photos of postcards we bought will give some idea of the wonderful decoration.

Banqueting Room

The King's Apartments

The Great Kitchen

From the Pavilion, we made our way down the hill to the seashore where, much to our surprise, we found that there was a pebble beach, instead of sand.

We had lunch at the Palm Court Restaurant, which can be found at the end of the Brighton Pier after passing through the huge indoor arcade of slot machines and then, since the weather had deteriorated into rainy squalls, we gave away our plan of a beach walk and returned to London by train.

Palm Court Restaurant

We took advantage of our early return to revisit the Natural History Museum in Kensington. This building was one of our favourite memories from our 2004 London visit and it did not disappoint! The entrance hall is a gigantic stone cathedral-like space, with several impressive staircases and beautiful sculpted decoration on all its stone columns.

Ceiling decoration

Our day ended with an interesting trip back to Tottenham Court Road on the Underground - in peak hour crowds, with bad weather causing delays on our line which required some quick changes to our plans. Nevertheless we were very impressed with the way the Underground seems to move so many people around the city with very few disruptions.