My Weekend Away in Tunbridge Wells

This weekend we decided to go to Royal Tunbridge Wells for a weekend getaway. We had to go because Sam had an exam, but thought we'd make a weekend of it too! I thought I'd share our Valentine's weekend away with you!

Our Hotel
We stayed at the Travelodge Tunbridge Wells which is currently being refurbished and is covered in scaffolding but should look like this. It's based in an old hotel which Travelodge have bought and are making their own.

Although I was kindly offered to stay there by Travelodge, it should have been only £94 for 2 nights including breakfast which worked out less than £25 each per night - not bad! The building is a mixture of old features with modern fittings and new carpets

We had a room on the third floor which was under the sloped roof making the room quite small and 6'2" Sam had to bend down to not bump his head when walking around the room. I think if you had a room on the first or second floor, the room would be lovely because they had the old, super high ceilings.

However, although small, the room had everything you'd expect from a Travelodge - it was clean, the bed was comfortable and it had all the basics (although I had to borrow a hairdryer from reception as there wasn't one in each room). We had one of the recently refurbished rooms so it smelt like new carpet! They also left a little box of sweeties on the bed on Valentine's day! 

We had the "all you can eat" breakfast buffet in the mornings which was nice - there was a range of English Breakfast foods, as well as cereal, muffins and croissants which were yummy. 

What we did
We quickly discovered Tunbridge Wells is BEAUTIFUL. This is a view of the common opposite our hotel, and it was a quick 10 minute walk around the common into town or across to the beautiful "Pantiles" shopping area. There were also houses built into the huge boulders on the common! It was amazing.

 We met up with Sam's mum and her partner and went to Scallywag Cafe near the hotel. It was a mixture of kookie furniture, most of which you could buy, and mis-matched seating. It was really sweet and a lovely place to sit and watch people out on the common.

We had lots of teas and coffees there, and had some lunch with vintage cutlery and plates. I had a chicken and mushroom pie which was sadly a bit tasteless, but the others had filo tarts which they said were delicious.

After our lunch, we parted ways and Sam and I wondered into town to have a look round. The main town has fantastic shops and we spent a long time exploring the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre which got me very excited! They had everything I could have wanted and more including Fenwick department store which I love visiting when I go to Canterbury. In there I swooned over the designer handbags and was very almost convinced by Sam (who is a complete enabler) to buy an oxblood Mulberry Bayswater.

I managed to step away and instead bought myself a new MAC lipstick.

I've been really obsessed with googling MAC Velvet Teddy after seeing so many people use it to make Kylie Jenner inspired overlined lips. However when I tried out the colour it was so brown! The MAC ladies guided me towards a similar colour called Creme In Your Coffee which is a creamy mid-tone pink brown and is much more flattering to pink or pale skin tones than Velvet Teddy. It's a lovely "my lips but better and darker" shade and I can't wait to show you a review later. 

That night we went out to The Pantiles for our Valentine's evening which is a gorgeous walkway area full of little shops. 

We got all dressed up and headed out for dinner. Sadly, as we didn't know until a week before that Sam and I would be in Tunbridge Wells, we booked our restaurant too late and went to Zizzi for dinner as we couldn't get a place at another Italian with great reviews on Trip Advisor. However, I love Italian food so I was happy! We had 3 courses and lots of cocktails and I was so busy having fun and getting tipsy that I forgot to take any photos. I am annoyed now because I loved my makeup that night!

The next morning (after being woken by a fire alarm because someone had a really hot, steamy shower and left the bathroom door open!) we had some more breakfast and headed home!

I'd absolutely recommend Tunbridge Wells as a weekend getaway and I really enjoyed my weekend there. It's a great way to get a little holiday in before your proper summer holidays to beat the winter blues.