Climbing cliffs and Cream Tea

Another week, another blogpost! This weekend was packed with even more activities than the last one and I think it’s safe to say that so far, this has been my favourite weekend spent in the UK.

Saturday

For a while now, I’ve wanted to visit Arundel Castle! I remember hearing about it form one of the students at the school and thinking it was a joke – in large part because the name is the same as the city from the Disney movie Frozen. Then I found out it was a real place and, after seeing actual photos of it, I was so excited to go there ever since.

So I caught the train on Saturday morning together with Cara, Lisa and Leonie (surprisingly, we only had to change trains once). Arundel is such a cute little town but truth be told, as soon as we arrived, all I could think about was food! We arrived at quite an awkward time that most places had just started serving lunch but it wasn’t quite lunchtime yet. We sat outside of an old pub and I bought myself a massive club sandwich, which was the best thing ever.

Given what we’d had for lunch, I was absolutely stuffed and had to pause to catch my breath walking up to up the castle (it wasn’t even that steep!) but my tummy kept reminding me of my gluttony not too many moments ago.

Arundel Castle, by the way, is as amazing as I thought and hoped it would be. It’s a restored and remodelled medieval castle. It was established by Roger de Montgomery on Christmas Day 1067. Roger became the first to hold the earldom of Arundel by the graces of William the Conqueror. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War and then restored in the 18th and 19th centuries. Even as you approach it, you’re left in awe at its magnificence unfolding before you. It’s also pretty well preserved which seems less surprising when you find out that the family that owns it – The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk – have owned it for several generations, opening part of it to the public hence why it’s not fallen into disrepair or been handed over to the National Trust.

Suffice to say, no good British trip is complete without a stop for tea, so we tea’d up and hit the road again back to the train station afterwards.

Sunday

On Sunday Lisa and I had an early start as we agreed to meet at the bus stop in Brighton at 9:30 in the morning to take the bus up to The Seven Sisters.

If you haven't been able to figure it out, The Seven Sisters get their name from their literal appearance—a series of seven hills along chalk cliffs. And, as you can see from the photos, the views from them are just as amazing as the views of them.

We started with a stroll along the shore and after that we were ready to make the hike up to the top. It's a steep and quick one. Once you are up, you climb up and down along the seven hills. We did the first few of them and then enjoyed some quiet time sitting down taking in the moment all together during a little break. While the cliffs draw a crowd, they are still very peaceful. You feel removed from the busy city life and reconnected with nature, it’s an incredible feeling.

After our relaxing time sitting on one of the last hills we packed up and headed out on another trail towards a little town called East Dean, where we wanted to catch a bus back to Brighton. We explored East Dean for a bit and went for coffee in (yet again) an old pub.

After our coffee we walked a little further into East Dean and saw that there already was a bus waiting so we went on it and were back in Brighton around 4 o’clock in the afternoon to enjoy another well-deserved cup of coffee and a piece of caramel shortbread.

Lots of love Esmee