Day 18 - Brighton

Distance walked: 13km, Alcohol consumed: 1 large glass wine

Today it was overcast but very mild and the weather forecast predicted the probability of rain at 0% so we set off in cheerful spirits. We started by getting on the local Hop On-Hop Off tourist bus. Yes, it is very touristy and tacky, but it would take us all around Brighton and hopefully give us a good overview of the town. Sadly most of the time there was no commentary. Partly because they didn't do a very good job of setting up this tour, but partly because there wasn't always much to say. If you are young and into live music & clubbing then Brighton must be a fantastic place to visit. If you have a young family and want to take them to the beach for a summer holiday then Brighton is sensible destination. If you are a tourist who is interested in historical sites then there is the Royal Pavilion which is a must see, and then there is the Royal Pavilion and then the Royal Pavilion.

Anyway, we took the tourist bus to the top end of town and then hopped off, to walk another mile or so out of town to an Edwardian manor house, Preston Manor. This had originally been the manor house for a large estate outside of Brighton. Most of the land has since been sold off, but there is still a large (now public) garden as well as the grounds of the house itself. The last owner of the house died in the 1920s. As she had quarrelled bitterly to her only child she left the house to the Brighton council, not him. It is still full of her furniture and is much as it was when she lived there.

It was a lovely house to visit as you could wander about basically all the rooms, including the servants quarters. You could also walk into to all the rooms, rather than peering into them. Many of these places have a rope across the doorway so you can just peer in. However, the contents here aren't so valuable or fragile so you got much better access. It was easy to imagine living here. They also had short recorded interviews that had been made with some of the old servants in the 1950s you could listen to. Their lives were very hard.

After visiting the house we went around the walled garden and into the medieval church next door. The house's owner had all her dogs buried in the garden, with gravestones for each one. We counted 20, although there may have been one or two gravestones hidden by bushes. While she died in her 80s and presumably had several dogs at a time, that still seems like she got through a lot of dogs.

By now it had started to drizzle. Apparently drizzle doesn't count as rain by English standards. While the garden was lovely, we were getting damper and damper so we gave up and headed back into town. We stopped at the first restaurant we came to that had hot food and free tables, a Greek place called Yefsis. This proved to be an excellent choice as the food was very tasty, almost all our dishes were rated You Can Eat It. Mary got complemented on her Greek accent when she ordered our food too.

After lunch, we finished walking back into town (why is the return journey always so much shorter?) and hopped back on the bus. We rode it out to the Brighton Marina. This was seriously ugly. All very modern, with blocks of apartments (mostly holiday lets) and two modern shopping malls - one for the outer marina and one for the more sheltered inner marina. The outer marina shopping mall was full of chain restaurants (low and mid-range) and a casino. The inner marina shopping mall had a bizarre mix of high end shops, including one that sold nothing but boats, and very low end places like $2 shops. Who went to the cheap places we couldn't decide. The marina is far from any regular housing and we couldn't imagine anyone who stays out here wanting to shop there. However, after looking at the prices of the boats perhaps that is all they can afford after buying (and maintaining the boat). A cheap boat costs around 200,000 pounds with many up in the 3/4 to 1 million mark available. The dearest was over 2 million pounds.

At the inner marina we stopped at a coffee shop for coffee and a piece of cake. Here we discovered the truth that just because a cake is home made doesn't mean it is well made. Finally, it had stopped raining/drizzling so we hopped back on the bus and road it back into town. The sun was out, so we wandered along the foreshore watching the sea gulls (they are huge here) and people watching too. Many of the original bathing boxes have been turned into shops, but one large(-ish) one has been turned into a small museum about Brighton and the sea so we popped in there. A lot about Brighton as a fishing port, but some about it as a seaside resort and also about the local life saving club. You'd have to be brave or crazy to swim here. The water looks cold - but we did see a few hardy souls swimming this afternoon.

Finally back to the hotel to pack. Tomorrow is London which is our last stop.

Dinner was at Casalingo. I started with figs wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with goat's cheese. Next I had cannelloni stuffed with ricotta and spinach, finishing with house-made cassata. The cassata was the only thing that didn't rather You Can Eat It status, it was merely Harmless. While it had been made in-house, it had been made from cheap commercial ice cream. I should have had the affogato.