Bournemouth, Dorset, UK

The pier houses amusements and a theatre

What a surprise! Bournemouth turned out to be warm and sunny all weekend. It’s full of leafy avenues lined with tall pine trees which allow dappled sunlight on to the streets below and good quality hotels staffed by enthusiastic young people from various European countries such as Poland, Lithuania and Spain. The houses are mainly Edwardian and make creative use of red brick as a building material. It’s a classy seaside resort with the minimum necessary amount of the usual blights of the English coast-line such as ice-cream parlours and tea-rooms. The demographic profile of England’s south coast always used to be that of a disproportionately aged community, full of retirement homes, convalescent homes, residential nursing homes and sedate, expensive hotels. But that has changed considerably in recent years and, in Bournemouth at least, there is a university, an Art college and lots of language schools which attract thousands of young foreign students. Consequently there is a thriving night-life with lots of restaurants, bars and entertainment.

These tiny beach huts, facing the sea, fetch a premium price and there is a long waiting list to obtain them. The road in front of them is free of all traffic.