During Mum's month-long stay with us in London, we decided to do a day trip to Brighton to take advantage of the sensational September weather (so much sunshine!) and also to check out a place that Nick & I had been wanting to see.. but had been waiting for decent weather to do it!
We boarded the train at Clapham Junction for the hour and bit trip down to Brighton. Upon arriving in Brighton, the weather was MAGICAL! Not a cloud in the sky, it was warm but not hot, had a breeze but wasn't too cold, and although a few people had ventured down to the season for the day it wasn't too crammed with day visitors. Perfect!
We wandered from the train station straight to the beach, Mum's first pebble-beach experience I believe! The sun was warm on our backs and we sat there for a while enjoying the sunshine (such a rare pleasure in England!) despite rocks in our ass. I dipped my toe into the cool, 'refreshing' ocean and ventured a little bit too far wetting the bottom of my jeans. A small price to pay and it didn't bother me as the weather was sooo lovely!
From the beach, we wandered up towards the infamous Palace Pier, somewhat ignoring the burnt down Pier at the southern end of the beach. It was hard work walking on the pebbles, but it was so surprisingly pleasant to be outside we didn't mind. The Palace Pier was lovely, and we enjoyed watching all the kids on the carnival rides, and the game adults doing the huge swing (that freaked me out just watching them!). The view from the pier was picture perfect with not a cloud in the sky, and the sun warming up to about 22C. We could even take our jackets off!
Being at the seaside, we all were craving fish and chips for lunch. We found a cafe on the pier that was serving just that, and at a reasonable price we decided to enjoy the sun by eating our fish outside, washed down by a cider. Yes, Mum had her first cider.... and loved it.
In the afternoon, we headed back into Brighton to check out the Royal Pavillion (wow - very extravagant) and the inner city streets, including 'The Lanes' which took a little bit of time to find, but we found it in the end. The Lanes are some tiny, skinny lanes where a load of Antique shops are all squashed into. Very quaint, and cute but slightly out of our price range!
We caught a 4pmish train back to Clapham, full of fish, chips & cider and with rosy cheeks from the sunshine. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day by the seaside. Waiting all that time for a sunny day in Brighton was well worth the wait!
We had planned to train it across to Paris for a weekend with Mum, and for Nadege's 30th birthday in Normandy, when a fire in the Eurostar tunnel the day before we were due to go forced all Eurostar services to be cancelled. Spontaneously we decided to apply for our Eurostar refund and we hired a car to head out into the English countryside for the weekend with Mum instead. Cornwall, Devon here we come.
Having planned nothing in advance, we threw some clothes into the boot and armed with Mum's England Lonely Planet began heading west to Cornwall, not realising it would take us 5 or 6 hours to get there! England is deceptively wide... it took us less time to drive to the north of England! We were efficient with our time, however, (!) as we passed Stonehenge on the highway west and left Mum in charge of snapping it between passing trucks and other obstacles in the car. Strange to have such a thing right next to a highway, how about that serenity?!
Our first night we stopped in Newquay, a small seaside surfing town on the English west coast. We found a B&B for 20 quid a night, and wandered the winding streets for a look around before heading over to dinner at a restaurant on the headland. We enjoyed a beautiful Pinot Grigio, and I enjoyed a divine Cornwall chicken with rosemary, while Mum & Nick had some of the local fish. A 5 star meal for a measly 20 quid each! Oh I love country pricing....
We set off on our second day to explore the "wild" Cornwall Coast. Our first stop was the charming and gorgeous seaside town of St Ives where we were following the coast road along the peninsula. Picture-perfect St Ives was beautiful and captivating nestled on the south west cliffs of England, full of winding of English lanes, rows of tiny cottages and a charming little marina at the very bottom. We wandered the streets for a while, before Mum rightly pointed out that it was low tide (evident by the marina only having sand, no ocean) and we should hurry over to St Michael's Mount to cross the tidal plane while it was low tide. So we abandoned our plan along the coast road and cut across to Marizion, just past Penzance to see St Michael's Mount.
St Michael's Mount looked impressive in the Lonely Planet guide, and in pictures, but in reality it was the poor man's version of Mont St Michel ... which literally was opposing us on the other side of the English Channel (though we could not see it!). For some strange logic, the only day the Mount is closed is on a Saturday.... so we walked across the tidal plain and had a peek nevertheless. We then resumed backtracked and resumed our drive along the coast road visiting Lands End (a beautiful spot on the coast, but what is with the weird tourist theme park they've built on it?!), and all of the necessary end of the world landmarks: 'Last Pub in England', 'The First & Last Shop in England', 'The First & Last House in England'.
We decided to stop into Penzance for lunch: after seeing "The Pirates of Penzance" a stupid number of times as a child, it seemed fitting that Mum and I should stop in and see the town that the musical is based in. Apart from a little bit of Pirate Paraphernalia, Penzance is a sleepy little English town. We walked the streets for ages looking for somewhere to eat, most of them closing up as it was nearly 2.30pm by the time we were there. Eventually, just as Nick was about to pass out from hunger we found "The Ship Inn" that would still accept our lunch orders. Nick and I had the Steak & Ale pie, Mum had the seafood basket (would you like some seafood on the side of your batter?!) washed down with a local beer. I tried to leave my peas... but they forced me to eat some. Ew. Hate peas. As it was getting late in the afternoon, we drove a few hours onto Exmouth where we had decided we would try and stop in at a B&B for the night.
Exmouth, a charming little town in Devon, proved to be a lot trickier to find a place to stay than expected. We rang loads of places, drove the streets only to find that all places seemed to be booked out! Eventually, by a stroke of luck we found one B&B with a vacancy sign and we sent Mum in to enquire (as I was thinking they were turning me away because I was young, perhaps they would pity a responsible mother and let us have a room!). Luckily, she had one room left that she could squeeze three people into. So we took it. Very, very gratefully we took it. After checking in, we wandered up the esplanade of Exmouth up to the sand dunes as we were all still so full from lunch. Eventually, we stopped in at an Italian place to share some pizza and again was surprised at the excellent quality of the meal at such a good price!
Our last day we stopped into Salisbury on the way home. Salisbury, a lovely little English town with a very impressive cathedral! Nick had been before and was keen to show us the cathedral, which as he promised, was impressive and also housed the oldest medieval clock in Europe! (I bet Prague is jealous of this). The stained glass windows of the Salisbury cathedral are beautiful, and this working church is so well maintained that it certainly adds to its beauty. Mum was very keen to enjoy some Cornish Cream tea while we were out in the country, and we managed to find George's Tea Rooms who were serving Cornish Cream tea (in Wiltshire, not Cornwall, but oh well) and quiche. Very quaint, and a fitting English country lunch! We spent the early afternoon wandering through the town a little bit, before wandering down the River Avon (aparently there are many rivers of this name, they are not connected) back to the car.
It was then on the road again - or, shall I say the M6 - back to London. I think Mum slept the whole way home... perhaps she was reserving a little shuteye as the following day she was setting off on her 10 day trip up through England and Scotland... while we were left in London to work!
