Brighton Day Trip!

I challenged my boyfriend to plan a day out for us when I visited London last week, I am the planner and organiser in our relationship so I thought it was about time he had a go at sorting out an activity! For those of you that don't know we are currently long distance as he lives in London and i'm in Nottingham so we do have to plan our visits to each other.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the plan he came up with, a day trip to Brighton! I feel like it was inspired by our day in Skegness the week before, but I was excited to go to Brighton where I have never been especially as it is talked about so much.

We got the train from London Blackfriars to Brighton for £11.20 each with a off-peak day return which gave us flexibility to not have to be back for a certain time. We arrived in Brighton just before midday  after the 1 hour 20 train ride. We followed everyone else heading out the train station straight down to the beach, you can actually see the sea from the train station exit. Once there we headed for the nearest land mark, the Palace Pier by walking along the edge of the beach. The walk is lined with cafes, shops and a fishing museum which is free and had loads of information and old pictures of Brighton form the 1800's so definitely worth a quick visit of you're there.

The Palace Pier is pretty famous and also fairly new after the old pier burnt down, you can still see the burnt out remains standing in the sea! The pier is covered in ice cream, doughnut, fish and chip and crepe shop but once you get through them there are some independent stalls along the pier with sweets and souvenirs, this is all before you get to the main attraction the arcade and fun fair!


Being a typical boy my boyfriend insisted we stopped and played on a racing game which i won! And am very very proud about that fact as I never beat him on stuff like that. Our budget friendly trip did not include going on the rides as they where pretty pricey and with he extremely high winds some where closed anyway. I did however take the opportunity for a photo op at the end of the pier and just about got blown away.

Next stop was lunch via the famous Brighton lanes. The lanes are a area of alley ways criss crossing together full of all sorts of shops with just about everything you could want. They are beautiful, full of bunting, flowers, hidden squares with fountains and much more. Exploring these was probably the highlight of my trip to Brighton.

We had burritos at Torilla for lunch before heading back into the lanes and discovered Ben's cookies, and I am not exaggerating that they are the most wonderful cookies that I have ever had, we shared a peanut butter and a triple chocolate. They where soft and gooey in the middle and just amazing!

To continue the food tour we headed to Dum Dum Doughnuts for a Galaxy and a Crutella doughnut, the Galaxy was filled with blueberry and vanilla cream while the Crutella was made from croissant dough and filled with hazelnut sauce.

To let our food babies goes down we headed to the beach for a sit, unfortunately Brightons beach is stones not sand but it wasn't too bad, due to the wind we picked a spot by a wall for shelter and chilled out here until it started to get cold including the obligatory bury each other in sand (or stones).

We decided to head home at this point before the weather got bad, so headed back to the train station and jumped on the next train home thanks to our off-peak day return tickets.

We had a great time in Brighton and its definitely worth a trip down for anyone in London, it feels so far away from the city when its really not that far!

Has anyone else planned or had a day planned for you? Where did you go?

Battersea Park Adventure

Last weekend while in London I took a trip to Battersea park which i'm going to be honest I didn't know existed until the day before! Definitely learn something knew every day haha

Luckily I had my boyfriend with me who has been before and knew his way around, there are so many activities to choose from in the park everything from bike hire to pitch and putt and even Go Ape! We went on a Saturday morning so it was fairly busy with runners, cyclists and people working out on the outdoor gym area. We headed straight to the bike hire to get recumbent bikes of which my boyfriend had talked excitedly about for the last 12 hours. Upon seeing them I wasn't so keen...

Recumbent bikes sort of look like Go-karts, 3 wheels, really low to the ground and instead of steering with handle bars you steer with your bum by leaning to the side you want to turn to. I'm not gonna lie I hated the first 5 minutes I could not get the hang of it what so ever and after a few sharp words at my poor boyfriend who was just trying to help I got going!

It did actually turn out to be really fun and the park was full of people using them, they cost us £11 each for one hour which was plenty of time as they are a bit of a work out!

After our little recumbent work out we headed to the pizza restaurant by the pitch and putt, you can eat in or takeout and as it was fairly busy with it being a Saturday. We had takeout so we could eat on one of the many grassy areas in the park. We both got a margarita (for cost reasons) which where £10 each. They where honestly amazing, freshly made in a stone bake oven, the tomato sauce was incredible, honestly one of the best pizzas I've ever had and I've eaten a lot of pizza in my life.

After eating we considered pitch and putt or maybe Go Ape but with our limited budgets and how busy both where, we decided against them and went for a walk instead. The park has many pathways you can follow as well as gates along these allowing you to go into the wooded areas instead which we did to explore a little and ended up in the tropical gardens around the lake.

We had a lovely day out and I would really recommend a visit here for anyone in London, its nice to see a bit of nature and wildlife in the city and great for getting exercise, exploring and just generally have a lot of fun! Like most things in London the activities can get a little pricey so picking your favourites is a good idea for those on a budget but it's still lovely for a walk and a picnic if your want a free day out