Brighton, Lewes and a couple of Castles

London, along the rest of the UK and Europe, has been stuck in a never-ending Winter. So far it's been about eight months of cold weather and grey skies and everyone is really getting tired of it. It's Spring, I am not supposed to still be wearing my big Winter coat and sleeping with a hot water bottle.

My hands are cold all the time, no-one remembers what it's like to be warm! Hopefully Summer is just hiding around the corner, and then perhaps we'll get a never-ending Summer.. but I doubt it.

So when we woke up on Saturday to more grey skies, we knew we had to get out of London for the day, and go somewhere known for sunshine, the seaside! We had a quick look at the train prices and discovered Brighton had the cheapest train tickets, so off we went.

Some of the amazing Brighton Street Art

We arrived just before lunch, and before it was too busy. We veered away from everyone else getting off the train and wandered through the back streets, slowly making our way down towards the pier.

We came across Rowlf from The Muppets playing the Piano, he was really good. Definitely a good way to get more money from passers by.

Brighton has some amazing Street Art, most of the City is covered is stunning murals, and everywhere we turned we came across something different.

The Royal Pavilion, a former Royal Palace and also an Army Hospital during the First World War

We have been to Brighton once before, when we first arrived in the UK way back in 2010! It's hard to believe we've been here for just over two years already, time has gone so fast.

We realised when exploring the City, that we had missed a lot when we visited the first time, so this visit was like discovering half the City for the first time.

Last time we visited we visited the Pier, but didn't venture onto the beach or along the waterfront. The beach is made up of millions of pebbles, rather than sand. I imagined they would be hard to sit on, but walking along the beach, the pebbles curved beneath our feet and they were quite nice to walk across.

Finally a bit of sunshine so we can break out the sunglasses!

We loved the brightly coloured desk chairs all along the beach. Only two pounds for the whole day, such a bargain.

We stopped for lunch at a burger place on the boardwalk that looked good. Made from 35 day aged Beef, with skin on chips, so delicious. It wasn't seafood, but just as good as!

After having fully explored Brighton, we headed 15 minutes North to the small town of Lewes, pronounced 'Lewis' rather than the 'Loos' we thought it was.. I cannot pronounce anything correctly in the UK!

Lewes is a lovely English town, surrounded by countryside. It's overlooked by a Castle, and full of beautiful old buildings and coloured houses.

London is such a busy and hectic City that sometimes we need to escape to somewhere where we can walk along the street without someone breathing down our neck, and breathe in some fresh air without inhaling cigarette smoke.

Luckily the UK is full of places within an easy day trip of London, and we have several day trips planned this year.

The sun was now out and shining brightly, and it was warm enough to shrug off our big coats and explore the little town of Lewes in just our light jumpers and jeans. I don't remember the last time it was warm enough not to need my coat in England!

Compared with London, and even Brighton, Lewes seemed deserted, even though there were lots of locals shopping and going about their day to day life. It was lovely to just wander through the town and see all the old buildings lining the cobbled streets.

Lewes Castle isn't very big, it was built in 1069 by the First Earl of Surrey and stands on a hill overlooking Lewes. There was a wedding on while we were there, and the Castle had been decorated with bunting in all different colours. How amazing it would be to get married in a Castle.

We headed into the Castle once the Wedding Guests had departed, and found we had the Castle completely to ourselves.

We climbed up the stairs lined with bunting and got some wonderful views of the surrounding Surrey countryside.

Peeking out through the Castle windows onto Lewes below

We headed back to London in the late afternoon. That night we headed back into town to go to The Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London.

The Ceremony of the Keys takes place every night at the Tower, and has done for over 700 years. This website has a great description of the Ceremony, but it is essentially the formal locking up of the gates of the Tower of London each night.

Tickets are free, but you have to apply in writing a few months in advance of when you want to go as places are limited. I assumed that meant only a few people at a time, but there was about 40 people in our group.

It was a great night, and much more interesting than the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace.

Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos once inside The Tower of London, but we got some before going in. It's so light at 9.30 p.m. at night, but what's the point of all this daylight savings if it's too cold to enjoy it?