Our Next Chapter: Brighton

Cafes, coastlines, and the start of something new.

Welcome (back) to my weekly newsletter! I’m Riana, and together with my husband, baby daughter and our dog we’re spending seven months slow travelling through Europe. You can catch up on last week’s farewell to London here and you can always get more of the story on my website, Teaspoon of Adventure.

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This week we arrived in our new home for the next two months: Brighton, England. I’ve never been to Brighton before but a week in, and I can already tell I’m going to love living here.

As the name implies, Brighton is very bright! We’ve been spoiled with lots of winter sun for our first week. The city itself is also covered in stunning street art and many of the doors and buildings are painted in vibrant colours.

We’re living in North Laine, which one of the books in our Airbnb describes as the “heart and soul of Brighton.” Our neighbourhood is full of delicious cafes and restaurants, vintage clothing stores, independent shops, and all of that street art and colour I love!

As a bonus, it’s only a few minutes’ walk from the train station, which made getting here from London pretty easy.

We spent our first few days unpacking and setting up our home, doing a big grocery haul, and wandering the streets of North Laine.

On our first full day here, we walked down a pedestrianized street busy with people shopping and sitting at outdoor tables in the sun. I was grinning the entire time and mentally noting about a dozen different stores I want to come back to. It was such a nice welcome to Brighton!

What we did this week

This week, we headed to Brighton’s Open Market, a covered outdoor market with food, clothing and goods for sale. We picked up delicious mini sausage rolls from Little Piggy, handmade cards from a local artist, plus new sweaters for Colin and I from a secondhand shop.

Right behind the market is The Level, a very cool park in the middle of the city. After watching people do tricks at the skate park, we headed over to the playground section. Baby C is still a bit young for most playground equipment, but it was fun to put her on swings and slides. She mostly loved watching the bigger kids play.

On another sunny day this week, Colin and I took Baby C and our dog, Ellie, down to Brighton Beach, which is only a 15 minute walk from our apartment.

Along the way, we got to see more North Laine shopping streets, plus walk through The Lanes, a series of twisty turn-y alleyways full of shops and restaurants that look like something out of Harry Potter. We’ll definitely have to return there for more exploring!

The beach itself was awesome. It was too cold for swimming (for us, at least; I did see some brave souls doing cold plunges) but the perfect temperature to walk along the boardwalk, take in the views, and enjoy a little al fresco snack on a seaside bench.

Oh and one more exciting thing we did this week: We signed a lease on a new apartment back home in Vancouver!

We’re not going back to Vancouver for a while, but it’s so nice to know we’ll have an awesome place to live when we arrive and won’t have to scramble to find housing. And now I want to buy a bunch of beautiful home decor from all of the Brighton shops even more than I already did!

What we ate this week

I was sad to leave behind such great food in our neighbourhood of Brixton in London but I cheered right up when I realized that Brighton is going to be just as delicious a place to live!

We’ve sampled a few cafes around North Laine so far: Coffee at 33, The Flour Pot and Pelicano. I’m not a big coffee drinker, but the pastries have been excellent. And we’ve tried some really unique ones, like orange polenta cake, caramel cinnamon brownies, and white chocolate, cranberry and rosemary cookies.

After having our first roast meal at a pub back in Brixton, I’ve now had two more roasts here in Brighton at The Basketmakers Arms and The Dorset. Controversially, I don’t love that the plates are drowning in gravy (I need to remember to ask for mine on the side). But I do love all of the veg and sides hidden underneath.

And, of course, you can’t be mad at a giant Yorkshire pudding!

But my favourite meal of the week would have to be our afternoon tea at The Grand. This was Baby C’s first afternoon tea experience and our first one of this trip to the UK. It was so well done!

We were sat in a beautiful terrace room with lush velvet chairs, sea views and lots of sunshine. Our tea package came with unlimited hot beverages, so we indulged in hot chocolates, mochas and three types of tea. The food was also incredible - mini sandwiches, quiches, sausage rolls, tarts, cakes, pies and, of course, very good scones with cream and jam!

For some non-British meals this week, we ate Korean/Japanese rice and noodle dishes from O’Shio (we wanted to try their sushi but it was so pricy, especially compared to the cheap and fresh sushi we get in Vancouver) and we ordered pizza from Fatto a Mano, which was delicious.

Highlight of the week

We visited Brighton’s Royal Pavilion this week and it totally blew me away. I had seen photos of the outside of the building but had no idea what would be waiting inside.

Walking into the dining room was an eyes-wide-jaw-dropped moment. The long table, the chandeliers, the ceiling, the curtains, the gold - it was all so stunning! I had a similar reaction when I walked into the ballroom, which was also ornately decorated and had lots of cool dragons in its design.

The pavilion was originally built as a seaside retreat for King George IV in the late 1700’s. Unique to most other castles/palaces we’ve seen in Europe so far, this one is built in the Indo-Saracenic style, which was popular in India in the 1800’s.

So throughout the pavilion, there are lots of Asian design elements (not what I was expecting from a royal home in England!). That meant a lot of dragons, which was especially cool for us as both my mom and Baby C are born in the year of the dragon.

We had an amazing time touring the pavilion and hanging out in the different play spaces for kids. Baby C was particularly enchanted by two little girls who were dressing up in period costume for a pretend tea party.

Lowlight of the week

Last week, I had a slight tickle in my throat and this week, the rest of the family came down with it. First my mom, then Colin and lastly (and most sadly) Baby C. Everyone got their own version of it (cold, cough, headache, etc) but suffice to say the kettle was always on with lots of honey, lemon and ginger at the ready!

Despite a stuffed nose, Baby C was her usual happy and smiley self. In fact, she was probably the least miserable out of all of us and such a trooper through our activities and meals out.

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New on Teaspoon of Adventure

⭐ 5 Ways We Stay Connected to Friends & Family While Travelling Abroad

One of our biggest concerns about spending 10 months away from Vancouver with our baby was missing out on time with friends and family. Luckily, we’ve been able to stay connected with visits, modern tech and some old-school snail mail. Read all about it in my new post!

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What’s coming up next

Next week is our final week with my mom in Brighton before she’s off on her own European adventures. She’ll be travelling through Portugal’s Algarve and Spain’s Andalusia - so yes, I’m very jealous of the amount of warmth she’ll be getting compared to us in the UK!

But before she goes, we have lots of yummy Brighton restaurants we want to try. So stay tuned for some hopefully drool-worthy meals!

Until I’m next in your inbox, I hope you find some pockets of winter sunshine, art that makes you smile and lots of cozy moments with warm beverages.

Yours in adventure,
Riana

PS: Want to read more? Catch up on our final week in London here, read my full review of our five weeks living in London here or check out what we packed for 10 months of travel with a baby here!