Brighton

One of those rare nice sunny days was a good opportunity to visit one of England's most famous beach resorts, Brighton. Historically famous for loads of reasons, not least gay community, site of IRA bombings and its weird, onion domed Royal Pavillion. The train journey is less than an hour and a half from London, but for us - taking the train into London, waiting to change at Clapham Junction, and then getting on the already jam packed train, was a little more involved. The beach isn't exactly sandy (unless large pebbles still counts as sand) and the water must have been pretty damned cold not to have a single swimmer (pretty sure there're no nasty stingers or sharks here) but that didn't stop the beach looking packed like in high summer. Brighton has more indie shops and restaurants than I've seen since arriving in the UK and it was also heartening to see not everyone was looking forward to the much publicised jubilee either.