"My home." a Brighton Travel Page by shizzler

I live in Hove, which is joined onto Brighton. It's on the south coast and not far from London. Brighton is a tourist city and an apparent 91% of it's population are foreign to Brighton itself. There's loads to do in Brighton and if you love eating out, clubbing and bars or shop till you drop sessions you'll not be dissapointed. Brighton is also the gay capital of the U.K. Every year it holds a festival called gay pride which is huge and attracts thousands of people to party in the streets and park. Then of course there's the piers. Palace pier, the one still standing, is huge with loads of rides etc. on and a huge attraction. The other is ruins as it was burnt down years ago and only the rusted and twisted bits sticking out of the water remain. The beach stretches from the marina, the east end of Brighton, all the way to the other side of Hove and into Shoreham, miles upon miles of shingle beach. Much of the attraction to Brighton & Hove is the seafront with it's lush green lawns looking over the beach and seafront and the million pound apartments and endless amounts of hotels overlooking the lawns. Hove town centre has most of the shops you'd need and a huge choice of restaurants and bars, but for the biggest selection of shops, including churchill square shopping centre (huge place with so much under one roof) tourist sites including sealife centre(huge aquarium with sharks, rays etc. and nightclubs along the seafront head for Brighton. You can always find taxi's, busses and tug tugs around the busier parts of the city. The marina is a great day or night out with some bars/nightclubs, cinema, roughly 6-8 restaurants, casino, gym and much more all set overlooking the yachts moored in the marina which itself is huge. Try the chinese boat restaurant, expensive but great food. Brighton's also home to Brighton & Hove albion football team. their home is the Withdean stadium, although i wouldn't call it much of a stadium. Capacity is about 8000 and it's a roofless and temporary ground until they build their proposed 22000 all seater. Boy do they need it. In Hove you've got the Sussex cricket stadium which is by far more special to look at than the Withdean. Tourist attractions in Brighton are never far away and one of the biggest is the Royal pavillion. Just round the corner from the palace pier it's easy to find and has lovely gardens to sit in and chill out on a nice day. The building itself is steaped in history although i know none of it and looks like an Indian temple. If you're looking at possibly buying a place on the south coast be prepared to either come well away from the seafront or have a heart attack at the prices. Still, even if you do move away from the seafront the prices are still high. Brighton is a place where anything goes and has a relaxed atmosphere by day with every style of clothing on show from punk to barbie to rasta to boot and suit. By night it's hectic and rivals virtually anywhere for a nightscene. Beware the bouncers though, some are nothing but idiots. Also it doesn't matter if you're 50 years old, bring i.d. as they love to turn people away just for the sake of it and at least you can take it as they think you look young for your age. In Brighton there's also the lanes. These are lots and lots of lanes which can get very intimate and narrow that have anything and everything down them from Spanish tapas bars to normal pubs to antiques shops to designer clothes shops and market type stools selling everything. With a large gay scene in the kemptown area there's lots of different tastes in clothing and also lots of goth and rock type shops too. The gay nightscene is kept mostly to itself over the kemptown area but if you don't want to go into one unsuspectingly, just look out for the clubs/bars with the rainbow coloured flags above the doors.