Fish and chips

I love the ocean, any chance I get to take a train for a couple of hours and go to an ocean side town I take it, so one of the destinations I chose for one of my weekends in London was Brighton. I've seen pictures before of the Royal Pavilion, an Oriental style palace built by the Prince Regent as a vacation palace, and wanted to see it as well as step on a British beach which I hadn't done so far.

Those of you who know Brighton may be smiling now at my mention of the  "British beach" because my definition of beach is not what nature had in mind when it created this particular one. I was not expecting palms and blue-green ocean, of course, but I was expecting sand ... not pebbles. The beach in Brighton is a pebble covered beach and believe me it hurts if you sit there even for a few minutes, fortunately there are many beach chairs for rent around. On a mildly warm day at the end of August, the beach and the Palace Pier (home of arcades, amusement rides and other carnival attractions) were not too crowded and you could relax and listen to the ocean sounds merge with the laughter of the few kids that were around.

eating of paper cones some food I couldn't clearly identify so I went to one of the many vendors and bought one for me: Fish and Chips on a paper cone

At lunch time at the Pier, many people were carrying around and eating of paper cones some food I couldn't clearly identify so I went to one of the many vendors and bought one for me: Fish and Chips on a paper cone, it made me smile to lean on the fence eating my fish from the cone with my fingers watching the people grouped around a street performer and a balloon seller.

The guy at the ice cream stand told me I was lucky for being there early and in a not too crowded weekend, 'sometimes it looks like a gigantic bar', he told me, 'so close to London and cheap to get to it becomes a partying town and can get very noisy and unruly'. But today it was nice.

Inside the Royal Pavilion, the dragons adorning several of the ceilings are the most striking figures on the palace, it feels a bit over the top with the different styles and the hundreds of objects but I'm sure it accomplish the objective the then Prince of Wales had in mind, escape and indulge in a lavish setting. Many londoners continue that tradition today, escaping to this sea side town for a weekend.