England 2 – Brighton and the South Coast

OK – you are right, where is England 1?  That will cover the Lake District and will come later as I do  not have the information I need with me to cover that area.

I finished my tour of Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England in Brighton where I spent the last night before taking the ferry back to Brussels.  It is a convenient stopping point between the Lake District and Dover where I thought I could spend an interesting evening and morning.

I stopped at the Hilton, located right on the beachfront.  I will spare you the photo of the room I was given – it was impressive – especially since I only spent less than one hour in it since the local connection to Internet did  not work.  I had to make a choice between Internet and being moved to a smaller room! Internet won…

However, I did catch the view of the beach from the room, first looking East with the still functioning Brighton Pier.  At this time, about 17h, the beach is still very crowded at the end of a gorgeous Sunday.

Next looking West towards the remains of the Western Pier which burned down and was abandonned in 2003

I went jogging along the beach later in the evening, a very pleasant jog.  I can see why this is a popular place to come for the day or just a few days.

As I was there at the end of May, the evening is very long and by 20h, the sun is still up in the sky, but most of the people have left the beach. The Eastern sky is already turning colours from the sun getting closer to the horizon.

Towards the West, about an hour later, the sun is gone and the sunset colours are at their best.

The ruins of the Western Pier are a magnet for birds, most of them, I expect, will spend the night there.

I went for a walk on the Brighton Pier.  The Merry-go-round is not as fast as it looks like on this picture – it is quite safe.  I just experimented with the length of exposure to see if I could get a reasonable impression of the speed.  However, at shorter exposure, you do not notice the blur of motion, and with this longer exposure, it looks as if the merry-go-round is spinning dangerously fast – I will have to try again something in between, next time I get a chance.

The giant rotating arm offered more challenges, just to follow its flight through the air. 

The four people at each end were being tossed around rather a lot as you can see on this next photo.

If you move away from the thrillseeker’s end of the pier, with the moon and all the lights, it makes for a more peaceful view.  Here there are couples walking arm in arm and families with kids enjoying the last of a Sunday evening.

The view of Brighton Beach front is not so bad either from the pier and at night.  I still cannot get used to the fact that past 22h you still have the glow of the sun on the Western sky.

Along the beach, there is a photo exhibition – the same that was in Singapore when I moved there in 2006.  These are extraordinary photos of the world around us and animals that occupy it.  I remember spending a lot of time in front of some of these in Singapore.  I tried to ‘appropriate some of them for myself – unfortunately, it still looks like I took a photo of a photo – the lighting is all wrong!

On Monday morning, I went to visit the Royal Pavilion.  It is not very big, but once you find it, it is hard to miss once you know that the (future) King who built it was fascinated by the Mughal architecture in India!

This was George, Prince Regent’s pleasure palace by the sea before he became King George IV and remained so during he reign.

The interior is even more lavish and elaborate, but I could not take any pictures inside.  When Victoria became Queen, this was not quite her style, and really was too small for what she wanted so she sold the building to the city of Brighton after removing the best of the furniture and decorations.

On the way to Dover, I also stopped at the Battle of Britain Memorial, just outside Folkestone. I did not even know this existed.  I had about one hour to kill before my ferry, so I did a search for “Tourist Attractions” with my GPS and this came up.  I could not resist.

There are two replicas of WWII Allied fighters right at the entrance.

A wall where all the pilots who lost their lives during the battle of Britain are listed.  I knew that many foreigners had participated, I did not realise how many of them actually did, and how many lost their lives during this relatively short event.

The whole site is laid out in the shape of a propeller – very difficult to give the full impression from ground level, though, and I could not convince anybody to take me up in one of the plane on display!

By far the most moving asspect of the whole site, though, is the statue of a pilot sitting in the middle of the propeller, still in his flight suit, looking out to sea, waiting for a friend who has not come back from his last mission!

I was very impressed.

But it was time to move on, get onto the ferry and back to Brussels at the end of a very nice trip.

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