Brighton: 5 takeaways

I’ve just spent a couple of nights in Brighton. I must say I’m underwhelmed but then maybe what it offers is not what I look for. Anyway these are my five takeaways (four positive and one negative to make up the numbers).

I guess it says a lot that Afloat, the donut sculpture next to the pier is one of the top tourist attractions. In one list I saw it was number one!

There’s a great train service: you can get a direct train from Cambridge to Brighton. It takes a good two hours but the service is equipped with modern rolling stock, when it’s straight you get a clear line of sight along the train, and away from peak times there’s plenty of seating. It serves Gatwick so the centre carriages can fill up there with boarding passengers but otherwise it’s pleasantly calm. It’s not the fastest service but it scores highly in convenience and you’ve got the bonus of a stop on Blackfriars Bridge which gives you a view of London Bridge. and the City (see above).

The Royal Pavilion: it’s not overly impressive from the outside, it’s a bit hemmed in with no ideal vantage point from which to take the grand photograph but inside is something else. I reckon that at £17  it’s one of the best value admissions at such an attraction. It’s been extensively refurbished to reflect its original design and the richness of the colours is dramatic. It’s all in a Chinese vein and the rooms do the rainbow right the way through from red, through green to violet and magenta. Strangely it’s Indian outside but all of this was done before this country’s great colonial adventures.

Eating and drinking: there are lots of independent restaurants and bars alongside the inevitable national brands and they all seem to be staffed by enthusiastic, intelligent and competent people. We had super dinners at the The Coal Shed and Chamuyo (Argentinian), breakfasts at The Breakfast Club and Cafe Coho and lunches at Food for Friends (my first Vegan!) and Melrose. Noticeably the guy in charge of The Coal Shed squeezed us in on a busy night even though we had no prior booking. I also enjoyed a late night cocktail at XOXO. Raffaelo gets  a demerit for advertising an excellent breakfast but not being open!

i360: I guess this is Brighton’s response to the London Eye. It’s an observation tower which moves up and down a 162m high column and costs £17.50 for a ‘flight’ (it is run by British Airways) of 20 minutes or so. We got a voucher from our hotel for a 10% discount  and I’d say it was just about worth it although the tinted windows precluded quality photography. It has underperformed it’s plans, we did not have  to queue and our flight operated at barely 25% capacity. That was good news for us, less good for the Brighton City Council which had financed the venture. Congratulations though to the Holiday Inn which provides an interesting roof to look down on.

the Royal Albion Hotel: this is the negative and it’s a big one. We needed a hotel which didn’t penalise travellers who looked for single rooms and the Royal Albion ticked that box without charging the earth. However I did not read the reviews which were just about unanimous in their criticism of the hotel. That’s sad because it’s in a perfect position just by the South Pier and it’s an elegant building dating back to 1826. It’s owners, Britannia Hotels are clearly running it to maximise profit whilst doing the bare minimum for their guests. The check-in is hostile, the carpets and windows are dirty and the rooms are equipped with uninspiring, barely functional furniture. And to cap it all there’s a notice from management invoking Covid as an excuse for offering no housekeeping. Truly dreadful.

There’s more to Brighton of course but for me not that much. We walked the length of Brighton Pier where we OD’d on the smells of sweet fast food and we wandered the Lanes but found little of interest beyond the cafes, bars and restaurant. I walked along the sea front eastwards to see if I could find the hotel we stayed at 60 years ago without success. My guess is it’s the building which now houses the Bristol Bar. There’s little evidence of what’s reputed to be one of the largest LGBT communities in the UK which for me is a good thing if it means that it’s being normalised but there’s certainly a lot of Vegan restaurants! And does seem to be a lot of smokers.