Brighton in July

Have you seen Emily Blunt in the film Young Victoria, that won an Oscar in 2010. If not, you should try to see it immediately. Brighton was actually one of the filming locations and that for a good reason. Victoria became the Queen of United Kingdom in 1837, at the age of 18, and visited Brighton for the first time the same year.

On the picture you see the Royal Pavillion in Brighton, the former summer recidence of her two uncles King George IV and King Edward VII. It's built in Regency style, an exotic, oriental fashion popular in the days when King George IV was still just a prince and wanted to spend as much time here as possible. Well it wasn't exactly the Victorian style. She called the Pavillion "a strange, odd, Chinese-looking place", which might be true, but nevertheless she returned here twice. In 1942 she made some refurbishing so it would be suitable for her little family (she had only given birth to two of her nine children by that time), but since it was never really her style and some people saw it as a waste of the state's money to have built it from the start, she sold it to the town of Brighton in 1850.

Thanks to Queen Victoria it's now open to the public (and thanks to George IV it exists at all). We'll take the Explorer Pass students on a tour inside, to see how the royals lived in the beginning of the 1800's. It's well worth the visit, but the park outside is also a lovely place for picnic with the STS group. Click on the picture and have a look around.

/Emma