Today has been a busy day. We only arrived here a little over an hour ago and the hotel is packed – we are waiting for our 21:00 hours dinner reservation – the first time slot we could get – room service has their phone off the hook it’s so busy !
Set off in beautiful sunshine at 09:00 hours after a filling english breakfast at the Seacrest B&B, toward Brighton. I had suggested a slight detour to visit Arundal Castle – the location of many Australian touring cricket team matches against the Duke of Norfolk’s XI. One look at the castle as we drove into Arundel and Adrienne was putty in my hand – “Oh its gorgeous !” said it all.
On the bridge over the river entering Arundel – castle at rear
We decided not to actually go into the castle and drove around to find the cricket ground. Unfortunately there is only access on cricket days so we drove back to the town and walked the lovely main streets instead.
After leaving Arundel we headed toward Brighton and took a slight detour to drive through Bognor Regis – why ? because it was there ! The main street along the beach (beach ?! it’s really like a dry creek bed covered in river stones) was very pleasant and you could imagine it packed with sun seekers in the summertime.
Arriving in Brighton the main road in was also along the beach and we drove past the “old” pier which at some stage had just collapsed into the ocean and the end of the pier sat out in the water just a rotting frame – waiting to join the rest of it at the bottom of the ocean at some stage.
Outside view of the Royal Pavilion
We parked the car and headed to the Royal Pavilion, the opulent, oriental inspired home of the Prince Regent, son of “Mad” King George III and later to become King George IV.
The tour was very interesting and the interior of the place amazing!
The banquet room had a huge table to seat 30 and above the table was a chandelier weighing 1 tonne and looking as if it was being held in the mouth of a huge dragon. The decoration in most of the rooms was extremely ornate and a lot of the materials used were state of the art for the time.
Brighton Pier and “beach”
After the pavilion we headed down to the pier for lunch – what else but fish and chips – at Brighton Pier. Having recharged our batteries we wandered around the pier but it not being the holidays a lot of the shops and rides were not open.
We then headed back into the town and through “The Lanes” – a series of tiny streets packed with little shops and restaurants. You could easily get lost as sometimes it was hard to work out what was a lane and what was just a shop front door. Eventually we managed to find our way back to the car and headed off again.
The Seven Sisters
Our next stop was Seaford, a little town east of Brighton where the “white cliffs” of south eastern England tower along the coastline. Adrienne had found a spot where we could get a great view of a section called the Seven Sisters. The walk down a gravel road toward the coastline was dotted with seats where you could just sit and take in the magnificent view.
It was getting on toward 16:00 hours so we thought it was time to head back to our Heathrow accommodation.
Long Man of Wilmington
We made a slight detour along the way to look at one of the unique chalk figures that exist around different parts of England. This was the “Long Man of Wilmington” – just out in the paddocks on the side of a hill and luckily there was a spot we could stop and get a good look.
As we headed toward London we started to see signs on the road indicating “long delays” and when we got to the news on the radio the 10 minute bulletin of all the traffic delays seemed to indicate half the roads in England were coming to a standstill !
After crawling along for a while, Adrienne managed to find us a detour so we left the M25 where we could and headed along various “A” roads to get into Heathrow, finally arriving after 19:00 hours. With an early start for our flight to Berlin tomorrow morning it will be early to bed again after a tiring day !
Bognor Regis! You have distant relatives there. We dropped Aunty Mim off there on the 1991 trip with mum and dad, en-route to Heathrow. I think it was Uncle Dick's family. Smallest house I've ever seen. We had to take turns to go inside, and it was pouring with rain. Sounds like you are having a great and busy time. Love the blog and so does Mum. John & Carol