Brighton, England (Honeymoon Part 3)
- Allie
- Mar 19, 2018
- 5 min read
Hey y'all! Okay so sorry for the delay, it's been a crazy couple of weeks! I started a new job, we started redecorating our place, I turned a year older, and went on a work trip to Philly, BUT I've been SUPER excited to write this post about Brighton, England because it was one of my favorite stops on the whole trip. I probably won't do it justice but just take my word for it. Ya gotta go.
For those of you that don't know (like we didn't) Brighton is a coastal town about an hour or so south of London. We actually didn't even have it on our itinerary until one of Pat's friend suggested that we make it a stop and we are so glad that he did.
We stayed at the Red Brighton Blue, a boutique guest house located just off the sea front, in the heart of Brighton, less than a 10 minute walk from all of the things that you want to see and do. The owners, Peter and Steve, were two of the nicest people we met and Peter practically planned our entire stay in Brighton. Every room was so beautifully decorated (the picture of the chandelier above does not do it justice!) and when they found out that we were on our honeymoon, they gave us a bottle of Prosseco and upgraded our room. They also made the best breakfast. If you ever find yourself in Brighton, you need to stay there!
Our first stop in Brighton was for tea time at Metrodeco. Metrodeco is a really charming vintage-style tea room full of tons of really interesting furniture and and incredible drinks/food. It was right down the street from where we staying so I'm glad that we stumbled upon it. I don't even drink tea but this had been something on my list since we planned the trip because, why not. We did the full afternoon tea menu and the amount of food they gave us could have easily fed 6 people. The afternoon tea came with little sandwiches, scones, desserts and your choice of tea for 22 Pounds. It was probably too much food, but we somehow managed to devour most of it. I would have loved to stay for longer to test out some of their cocktail menu, but we were on a pretty tight time schedule for the day. Also, Metrodeco, like most of Brighton, is really dog friendly, so I got to eat macaroons with a bunch of puppies which is pretty much my heaven.
A quick 10-15 minute walk from our bed and breakfast was the The Royal Pavilion. The Royal Pavilion, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, was like something out of a movie. It was built in the 1700s by George, Prince of Wales and it was basically just a place for him to escape to and party every summer. (Go on with your bad self, George.) The outside is absolutely stunning, but just wait until you get inside. It is BEAUTIFUL and so over the top. Everything is super ornately decorated and over the top. You're not allowed to take pictures in the palace, which is a bit of a bummer, but there are plenty of pictures on their website if you want to check them out. One of my favorite rooms was the dining room, mostly because there was a massive golden dragon chandelier. Massive doesn't even appropriately describe how large it was. I never knew I needed one of those until that day. They offer a ton of different tour options, but we ended up just doing the walking self-guided tour. It costs around 14 Pounds and can take anywhere from 1-3 hours depending on how quickly you're going, but it gives you a chance to see all of the rooms and to learn the history. The grounds are beautiful as well so make sure to schedule some time to walk around. Also, DEFINITELY haunted which made me even happier.
After the palace we walked around the town for a little bit and ended up down by the water to catch the sunset. Peter had told us about the British Airways i360 observation tower earlier in the day, but it had been on the cloudy side so we hadn't committed to it just yet. (The British Airways i360 is the world's tallest moving observation tower.) We found a bar on the beach that said it had the best view of the sunset, but we decided to keep walking and check out some of the shops along the pier. I'm so glad that we did because the closer we got to the observation tower, the clearer the sky got. Next thing we knew, we were running to get to the tower to try and hop on the next ride up. We bought our tickets (16 Pounds day of), grabbed a glass of champagne, and slowly started rising higher and higher in the air. As soon as we got up to the top, all of the clouds magically parted and we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets that we have ever seen from 531 feet in the air. You could see all of Brighton and all the way down the coast. Pictures will never do the view justice. The whole ride takes about half hour, but it felt like so much longer. It was absolutely amazing.
After we made it back to the ground, we made a quick pit stop at the Brighton Pier to play a few hardcore games of ski-ball. All of the rides were closed by the time we got there, which is probably for the best because we were about 3 glasses of champagne deep by this time.
Once we realized how much champagne we drank and how little we ate, we decided it was probably time to get some dinner. We ended up going to this incredible Turkish restaurant, Makara, right around the corner from our bed and breakfast. The amount of food that we ate was unforgivable and every last bite was amazing. I don't think I've ever had Baklava that good. The waitress was also the sweetest person and kept bringing us different apps and drinks to try out.
I don't know how, but we were somehow able to roll ourselves out of Makara and into a few bars before we headed back. I would tell you which bars we went to, butttt all of those glasses of champagne, the bottle of wine at dinner, and the beers along the way definitely erased that memory.
It's hard to believe that we did all of this in less than 24 hours, but every part of it was so magical. If you're ever in England, definitely make this a stop on your trip! It was absolutely worth the trip south.