Why, it's the Royal Pavilion!

Despite having been to Brighton several times before, I'd never been inside the Royal Pavilion. Whoops.

Apologetic face.

Saturday, however, I remedied this situation.

Alrighty, the Royal Pavilion is super interesting. It was built by King George IV before he became king and had to start taking life seriously. The inside is decorated in what's called the chinoiserie style, which means all these white men who had never been to China approximated what they thought Chinese decoration should look like and applied it to the palace. Orientalism! Counter-intuitively, also, the outside looks vaguely South Asian. 

The place was gutted by Queen Victoria, so most of what's inside has been painstakingly reconstructed by experts. A lot of the original furniture is on loan back to the Pavilion from wherever Victoria took it, and there is no way to describe this furniture and decoration other than luxurious. I can totally picture how people would have partied here all night, every night. This may be because my complimentary audio guide kept playing period music and telling me to imagine I was a guest of Prince Regent George. Upstairs, there was a small feature on the Pavilion's use as a military hospital for Indian soldiers during World War I. It was really fascinating to read about all the efforts the Brits made to be conscientious of the dietary and religious needs of the different Indians, including putting in place Indian class structures. This was mostly because they wanted the Indians to like them so they'd respect their colonial power, but still.

In short, the Royal Pavilion was a treat. And on a frigid day, the fact that they had actual fires going in most of the fireplaces was a big bonus.

The family went out to a pub Saturday night as well. This is England.

Vegetarian style.