A Day Out to Brighton with Kids. Winter Edition…
Before this weekend we hadn’t been to Brighton for almost 5 years when Freya was a baby! But before that we used to visit all the time. It was one of our favourite places pre kids when we were first together and then my brother went to live there for uni so we’d go every few months to visit him. It’s such a fun city on the sea and amazing for kids. So much going on, so much for free too. It was forecast to be a really sunny day so although it’s only just into February, we jumped on the chance for a beach day and Raffy said ‘it’s just like California’! Haha. We did see palm trees, had a burrito & watched the sunset so yep, basically California but a bit colder. Here’s how we spent a fab family day…
- Park on the street for free on a Sunday around here. One thing to know about us is that we hate paying for parking, we’ll always just walk a bit further. If you’re visiting on a Saturday you can park around here if you don’t mind the walk.
- Our first stop was the Booths Museum of Natural History. A small, free but impressive museum full of taxidermy, butterflies and skeletons. There were some great children’s activities in there.
- Then we walked along to Hove. There are some fab bakeries, don’t miss BrodWolf for proper scandi cinnamon buns & impressively filled chocolate croissants.
- We stopped by the Hove museum of Creativity, another free museum that’s great for kids. They had a circus robotic engineering exhibit which our children loved to make automata and a cool display of retro toys upstairs.
- Both the Brighton museum had a sweet kids ‘borrow me’ section of things like torches, fidget spinners and colour viewers to take around the museums which was a great idea.
- Then it was beach time! I love the rainbow coloured beach huts along the Hove stretch. On a sunny weekend day the promenade was packed with cyclists, kids scooting and lots of people walking dogs. It has to be one of the greatest walks in the UK? There are great playgrounds along here too. Raffy was absolutely in his element collecting ‘treasure’ and shells. I haven’t seen him that happy for a while!
- We spent a while watching a very impressive bubble display man on the beach front sending out the biggest bubbles I’ve ever seen!
- We went for lunch at Wahaca, an old favourite that has a great kids menu too. Win when everyone’s happy. Then we got some gelato from Gelato Gusto a famed local donut and ice cream cafe.
- Quick stop in the photo booth at the retro Photomatic and browse around the North Laine with all the independent shops.
- Then to the pier, past the Royal Pavilion. The kids played on the 2p machines in the arcade for a while before we went to watch the sunset on the beach - always the most special way to end the day. I love winter sunsets and we hardly ever get to see them in the UK ~ we live in Hertfordshire so there’s not many sunset vistas near us.
- Picked the kids up some chips, did a supermarket haul for some fruit & snacks for the way home then changed them into their pjs for the drive home and they were asleep within about 2 minutes! Always the sign of a great, fun filled day. And a rare treat for us to avoid bedtime by transferring them into bed when we got home.
- We didn’t even get to the Churchill square shops like we’d planned or walked along the other way to the Marina. There’s also a Sea Life Centre there if you fancy that kind of thing. I think we’ll have to go back! Can’t believe how many amazing restaurants there are too.