The travels of Tim and Megan: Cardiff, Wales

On Friday night we took the short train ride from London Paddington to Cardiff and checked in to the Holiday Inn Cardiff - right next to the Millennium Stadium! Cardiff was buzzing with plenty of people out drinking and hoolganising in the centre of town. We also got a fabulous fireworks welcome as we approached our hotel -apparently for some festival week...

Saturday

The hotel was solid and we had a brilliant buffet breakfast there on Saturday morning - bacon, eggs, sausages, hash brown, tomatoes as well as tasty little french pastries. Awesome start to the day. Saturday started a little overcast but was soon brilliantly hot and sunny. First stop on our day in Cardiff was the Cardiff Castle.

Cardiff Castle sits right in the centre of the city of Cardiff, next to the Millennium Stadium and its history dates back 2,000 years. There were probably at least two Roman forts on the site, the first built around 55 AD. Then in 1091, following the Norman Conquest, a Norman "keep" was constructed on a large mound in the centre of the castle grounds. The shell of this keep still stands today. The castle became a Victorian mansion from around 1868, when the third Marquess of Bute commissioned a massive rebuilding of the castle, which turned the castle into a 19th century fantasy of a medieval palace. No expense was spared - the interiors were opulent using marble, gold leaf and hardwoods. Many of the rooms have amazing decorated ceilings, stained glass windows, murals and fine art works on the walls. The Marquess of Bute was insanely rich due to his owning the rights to mine minerals in all of Wales - his annual income from the mining of coal was the equivalent of around £3 billion in today's money.

We had a guided tour around the some of the beautifully decorated rooms of the castle, starting in the smoking room in the magnificent Clock Tower and moving through the children's nursery, the library and a stunning dining room, which is still used today by members of the Royal Family and foreign leaders. In 1947, the fifth Marquess of Bute gifted the castle and its extensive parklands to the city of Cardiff. Following our tour we conquered the steep steps of the Norman keep and got a magnificent view of the castle grounds and the city of Cardiff. We also enjoyed wandering around the pretty castle grounds.

After our castle visit, we checked out some of the shops along St Mary's Street, one of the busy main streets, including a huge indoor market, which sold all sorts of meat, vegetables, hot food and various other things. The people we met everywhere in Wales were always very helpful and friendly.

Next stop was the newly developed Cardiff Bay waterfront area. We walked past the impressive looking Millennium Centre (which presents the performing arts) with its copper roof and huge water fountain in front and through Roald Dahl Plas to the waterfront. We were interested to discover that Roald Dahl had been born in Wales and was actually baptised in 1916 at a small Norwegian church that still sits on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay - we popped in for a quick look but it was closed for a function. We also checked out the famous terracotta Pierhead Building, the new state of the art Senedd building, which houses the National Assembly of Wales, and the tunnel shaped tourist information centre.

There are now dozens of bars and restaurants scattered around the pretty waterfront area, the most popular of which appeared to be the Terra Nova bar, where we stopped in for lunch and a drink. It was very nice and we were happy to get out of the sun for a little while - something probably not often heard in Wales!

After lunch and a wander around the bay (where there was a lot of canoe polo going on!) we caught a bus back to the city centre and made our way into the National Museum and Art Gallery. We didn't have a lot of time, as the museum was due to close around 45 minutes after we got there, but we managed to see some really good impressionist artwork, including some Monet and Manet. Well worth a look!

Outside the museum they had closed off a few streets to make way for a huge carnival. There were thousands of people all over the streets, some with large soft toys under their arms, having won some crazy carnival game. We had a go at some of the games (like knocking tins off the wall and throwing hoops over a prize etc), but alas all we won was a really ugly Incredible Hulk soft toy. There were lots of carni folk with strange eyes that were starting to make us feel uncomfortable so we grabbed some candy floss and escaped the carnival...we also ditched the Incredible Hulk toy.

In the evening we caught a taxi back down to the waterfront area and had a cocktail at the Dim Sum & Cocktail Bar and then drinks at Terra Nova and Salt bars before having dinner at Cafe Rouge. There were a lot of rather "interesting" looking folks around...we spotted some special outfits and lovely tattoos... The atmosphere around Cardiff Bay was really good and it was a really fun night.

Sunday

On Sunday morning we caught an early train from Cardiff to Swansea. We grabbed some breakfast at McDonald's and had a brief look around the centre of Swansea before returning the train station and catching a train to small seaside town of Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales.