Lately we haven’t done any daytrips as my husband had knee surgery a couple of weeks ago… so we’re a bit stuck at home at the moment. With all those Christmas and New Year’s parties we wouldn’t have found the time nor energy anyway!

So… no recent adventures to tell, but I do want to share with you a fab daytrip we had in the summer of 2014. We like going to England, even if it’s just for one day so in August 2014 we decided to go to Brighton, a seaside resort on the coast of South-East England. 

We departed at the crack of dawn as we had to take the train in Calais at 7.30. Arriving in Folkestone we turned back our clock 1 hour and we still had about 150 kms to drive (well… my husband had!).

We arrived at about 9 am in Brighton to watch this seaside resort wake up and after a morning coffee we started our daytrip in the Royal Pavillion.  This is  is a former royal residence which was built in the 18th and 19th century and was used as a summer retreat by George, the Prince of Wales, who later was crowned King George IV.

This unusual building, which was built in Indo-Saracenic style, was designed by architect John Nash. We strolled around all the beautifully decorated rooms which have Chinese and Indian influences.

After our visit to the Royal Pavillion and its gardens, we strolled around in the Lanes. These little winding streets have heaps of interesting shops selling everything… from the typical souvenirs to antiques, from chocolate to fab fashion… We stumbled upon a very beautiful shop here, Pretty Eccentric, which sells twenties inspired clothes and accessories. I fell in love with like everything in this shop and couldn’t leave without buying a lovely dress… In September I did an outfit of the week post about this dress. you can see all about it here.

We were getting a bit hungry so we went looking for a place to have lunch. We strolled down King’s Road, soaking up the sun and enjoying the views and headed towards the Hilton Metropole (The Waterhouse Bar and Terrace) where we had lunch in the hotel lounge.

The lounge of the Hilton Metropole is really stylish. We like eating in elegant places like beautifully decorated pubs or hotel lounges. We actually have never been in a McDonalds… and we never ever took our children there…  Mind you, eating in elegant places doesn’t always mean we spend heaps of money… having lunch in this hotel lounge is way cheaper than having diner in their restaurant for instance.

A couple of hours later our batteries were refilled and we walked across the beach towards the famous Brighton Pier. Now this is something else!!! We were amazed by all the attractions on this pier… it really is an amusement park set on a pier… rollercoasters, the horror hotel, the dome, trampolines,… lots and lots of attractions just on a pier! It actually is a bit surreal…

After our visit to the pier, we strolled a bit through town and went to a pub to have a drink before heading to our car to begin our way back to Belgium.

It was an exhausting but interesting, fun day… and if I ever need a twenties inspired dress again… I will certainly go to this cute little ‘Pretty Eccentric’ shop in the Lanes 🙂

Love, Kathleen

Here you see the LBD-post featuring the strapless LBD that I was wearing on this daytrip.