3. Brighton, Old Friends, Incredible Turkish Food. 5/7/22

Greetings from London –

Today we headed to Brighton from the London Bridge Rail Station. We met up with Emma and Hem (Hemma for short) and Finn to take the one-hour train ride to Brighton, at the sea. Mike and I hadn’t been to Brighton in decades and when we were last there it was a honky-tonk working class vacation place; no frills; inexpensive; and the visitors were clearly there to spend hard-earned and saved money to take their annual seaside vacation from northern England. Today, it’s a hip place where Londoners have their bachelor/bachelorette parties and where Londoners have pricey homes in the Hove area. 

The train was efficient and we watched Finn play numerous games, put dinosaur stickers into scenes, and eat about every ten minutes. Mostly he was looking forward to seeing sharks at the aquarium. We arrived in Brighton and walked the ¾ mile to the aquarium—the oldest aquarium in the world, built in the 18^th Century.

After checking out all the various fish, we walked to Salt House for lunch where we were joined by two old friends from Finland who now live in Brighton. After living in NY for decades they relocated to London and then during the pandemic while working remotely they decided to see if they liked Brighton as the thought of living by the sea was appealing. They found, after two years, that they really liked it and bought a place in Brighton Hove (which they will move into on July 1). It’s an hour train ride to his office in London and post-pandemic he is only going into the office on Mondays.

Good lunch – all fish—and then Hemma and Finn left for the train. We strolled with Pia and Sami, reminiscing and talking about Finland’s potential to join NATO. They left us off at the Royal Pavilion and they headed to their team’s football (soccer) game. They became fans of the Seagulls when they moved to Brighton. I get the sense that it’s not a very good team but it has a lot of loyal supporters.

They encouraged us to visit the Pavilion and we did. The Pavilion—built in Indo-Saracenic style has an interesting 200-year history. It was built to be the seaside pleasure house for King George IV. Its dozens of rooms are furnished both elaborately and eclectically with a good deal of Chinese artifacts. The current look of the Pavilion, with domes and minarets, came from the extension of the building in 1815. When George’s successor, Victoria, visited for the first time, she supposedly stated that she didn’t like the ostentation and also didn’t understand why a palace would be built at the sea and not have views of the sea. Apparently George’s interests in being at the sea had little to do with the waterfront and more to do with his own activities inside the palace with his women friends. Bottom line… amazing craftsmanship and upkeep—definitely not my style!

We then walked uphill through the town to the train station. By the time we reached the station we had clocked in at nearly 17,000 steps and over 7 miles, so it felt good to sit on the train. And once we reached London, we decided to take a taxi from London Bridge Station to the hotel. Just enough time to freshen up and head for dinner.

Off we went to Oklava where we had been once before but for lunch… tiny, tiny place with amazing Turkish food. We started with tomato rice stuffed courgette flowers and ox heart skewers with some kind of molasses and cumin; followed by this amazing pide (sort of a big bialy with some kind of cheese baked and an egg yolk floating at the top and some garlic and I think za’atar; and then we had the sweetbreads and a salad (with lots of ingredients). And for dessert—an amazing concoction of warm pistachio halva with tahini and fresh grapefruit, topped with a small serving of ice cream (flavor unknown)… And as usual  a picture can replace a thousand words.

Strolled  back (or rolled back to the hotel).. OK… that’s it; tomorrow is another day.

Stay well.

Fern