BRIGHTON ROCKS

Posted on 03/21/2016

Brighton is a bohemian University city, on England’s south coast, less than an hour from London by train. Its Regency architecture, kitsch shops and tranquil green spaces have made it popular with the creative New Media crowd, who commonly refer to it as Silicon Beach.

It’s also renowned as one of Europe’s most gay friendly cities and celebrates this every August in the Gay Pride carnival which attracts thousands of participants; but it’s the Rio-carnival-type parade, after party and funfair in Preston Park that attracts most of the spectators. Then of course, there’s the Brighton Festival - the largest multi-art form festival in the UK that includes organized processions such as the Children's Parade and outdoor spectaculars often involving pyrotechnics and a great deal of theatre, music, literature and visual arts in venues throughout the city. The art community in Brighton is extensive and showcased once a year in some 200 artists’ private homes in an open house event - held during the Brighton Festival. Some of the artists’ home studios - a row of Victorian fishermen workshops converted into small gallery spaces - are directly on the beach, between the Brighton Pier and the West Pier. This is the famous Brighton Artists Quarter and one of the UK’s premier nightlife hotspots.Other than the usual tourist brochure list of places to see - like the Hindu-Gothic style Royal Pavilion, the funfair and arcade halls of the Brighton Pier, the world’s oldest operating electric train at the Volks Electric Railway, or blue lights of The Grand Hotel, go in search of Brighton’s creative edge. This edge is to be found in The Brighton Lanes which are crammed with wondrous unconventional shops, funky cafes and jazz musicians. Here narrow alleyways merge the extraordinary with the avant-garde; antiques with contemporary design and bespoke boutiques. It’s a great place for both the battle worn shopper and sedate traveller to savour a coffee and soak up the city’s history – all to the background sounds of live jazz being busked somewhere.The café culture in Brighton is big. From the intricate warren of passage ways in The Lanes, to the relaxed open-air beachfront wi-fi cafes, it’s all about unwinding in a hip cosmopolitan city. You could indulge in a traditional cream tea at the Royal Pavilion café, or visit the tea room all of Brighton flocks to – the MetroDeco (www.metro-deco.com), a lavish 1930s Parisian tea salon dressed in art deco furniture and crystal chandeliers. Afternoon tea indulgences and three-tier cake stands overflowing with sinful treats are on every table, as are pots of bespoke floral teas. Downstairs is a luxurious seating area and art deco showroom and where they do doggy tea parties! With 8-million tourists visiting Brighton each year, there are understandably a great many hotels and B&B’s to choose from.  With chintz slowly gives way to contemporary, finding the right one could be a hit and miss affair.The elegant Hotel Una (www.hotel-una.co.uk), a boutique hotel on Regency Square and within view of the West Pier, is one of the more stylish hotels Brighton has to offer, with a champagne cocktail lounge, bespoke interiors and attention to the tiniest detail in each of its 20 individually designed en suite rooms. Enquire after a restaurant for foodies and you’ll be directed to In Vino Veritas (www.in-vito-veritas.co.uk) a superb little French restaurant that won’t disappoint.Brighton is a melting pot of nostalgia and invention, a diverse city with a cool, vibrant culture plus loads of seaside tradition and a definite weekend getaway.