On Saturday morning after Bryan dropped Rosie off at the doggy hotel, we made our way to Victoria Station to catch the train. Our train ride down to Brighton could not have been more smooth. We sat in the section set aside for wheelchairs and buggies and had plenty of room for the three of us. Bryan and I sat and enjoyed our coffees and Chris slept through the hour long ride to Brighton. Chris actually missed quite a bit of lovely English countryside passing by our windows but allowed mom and dad to enjoy it by being such an All-Star!
Bryan and I started our day by stoping at the Visitor Information Centre to help us decide what we wanted to catch in our one day in town. Location played a large roll in where we started... Brighton Pavilion was directly behind the visitors centre. The pavilion's architecture was beautiful and left no question that the inspiration for the design was taken from India. From the pavilion we started to make our way down to the shore and the main attraction in Brighton, the Pier. It was on our walk to the Pier that we realized just how cold it was along the water. As we got closer Bryan and I became more jealous of how bundled up and warm Chris looked in his pram complete with blankets, muff, hat and trusty Canucks sweater.
The Pier was so much larger than I was expecting. Despite seeing plenty of pictures while I researched Brighton it still surprised me. It felt as though someone had taken the rides, games, food and people at Playland and the PNE and put them out in the middle of the ocean on a pier. Chris wasn't really into the rides apparently, so we decided to skip them but he didn't mind watching mom and dad stuff themselves with some of the best junk food the fair had to offer. We started with "American" hot dogs, followed by Belgian waffles drizzled in chocolate for me and caramel for Bryan and then sprinkled with nuts and we then shared a bag of mini donuts! I don't even feel a little bit guilty - it was too good! After our fortifying snacks Bryan tried his hand at "the claw" in the arcade. You know the one, where there is a big pile of stuffed animals and you have to drive the claw to the one you want before the time is up and the claw drops down to pick up the stuffed animal it is hanging over. The one he chose was full of Angry Birds stuffed characters and after putting 1 pound 20 (at 30p per try) into the machine and making several attempts that looked almost perfect to us Bryan turned to me and said this has to be rigged... I could have told him that and saved him the 1 pound 20...
From the Pier we headed to "The Lanes" section of town. It is the oldest part of Brighton and is made up of wonderful little shops tucked into these tiny little streets, so small in fact that I felt almost bad about taking Chris in the pram down some of them. The shops were full of knick-knacks, antiques and coffee houses but the best window shopping was in the jewelry stores. I have never seen such a concentrated group of jewelry stores in my life; we must have past at least 5 or 6 in a row. What made these jewelry stores so fun to look at was the style of the rings in the windows (very vintage - some of it was actually vintage estate jewelry) and the very wide variety of sizes and types of stones that made up the rings. I would gladly have taken home a number of the rings but the price tags made that rather prohibitive to say the least.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day out in Brighton and if not for a rather long list of destinations that Bryan and I would like to visit whilst here in England I would gladly make a return trip. The rides would also be a bit more fun if Chris was a bit older and willing to ride a few with his mom. As a random side note, Brighton is another location here in England that has featured in one of my favourite British crime shows and it is always fun for me to recognize a place and be able to say "I've been there!" Here's hoping that you all have a good labour day long weekend.