I wanted to start with this photo of Cardiff in English and Welsh. I have always heard that Welsh is hard to understand. Caerdydd is Cardiff by the way. We spent one whole day in Cardiff and then another day we did a tour that took us out into the countryside. As have other cities, Cardiff developed a fun way to raise awareness and money for a charity (a dog based one no less). A trail of decorated Snoopys! See a couple below.
The first place we visited was Cardiff Castle. Which by the way, the Cambridges just went there as part of the Queen's Jubilee celebration. Anyway, Cardiff Castle is owned by the city of Cardiff after it was given to them by the Marquess of Bute. Cardiff castle was originally built by the Romans and has been rebuilt several times. The tour starts underground in an area where they have found some of the original Roman walls. On the opposing wall, a mural of sorts was built a few years ago showing the history that has happened at the castle. I say mural of sorts because it is all wood carvings.
Miscellaneous pictures from the castle
The wood carvings and the Roman wall
From the Roman Wall, we went to the "house". This part of the castle was extensively rebuilt by the Third Marquess of Bute in the 1800s. To say the least it is elaborate. At that time, he was the richest man in the world thanks to the coal mining industry. Not only did he fix the castle up and live in it, he also made many donations to the city of Cardiff and helped it grow into a city.
ceiling and wall of a grand hall
chapel
dining hall
The Marquess did not rebuild all of the castle. The Keep is still very much a medieval building. Fun to explore, but not ornate like the house. We also visited the exterior walls of the castle and saw the air raid shelters that had been built into the walls during World War II.
In front of the Keep
Inside the Keep
After we finished exploring the castle, we did a Hop On Hop Off bus to see the rest of the city. As the capital of a country, it has a parliament and a national museum and a university.
Additionally there is a waterfront area. One of the performing arts centers is new. Its exterior is meant to represent Wales both its natural and industrial landscape. It is made up of steel and slate and is situated in the bay/waterfront area. While we only drove by, it was impressive from the outside.
Wales Millennium Center
Towards the end of the bus ride, we were coming up on the National Museum and one of the descriptions used was: has the most French Impressionist paintings outside of France. I enjoy impressionist paintings. We went in and enjoyed the paintings and then explored the area that talked about the ancient beginnings of Wales - talking geology here. We only had a few minutes before we had to leave to catch the last bus and the museum was closing. It would be a good place to spend some time in the future.
First sign we saw for the Jubilee - in train station on the way home.
One of many small shopping arcades spread throughout Cardiff
Our second trip to Wales was for a small group day trip that took us on a quick tour of Cardiff then on to Coch Castle, Caerphilly Castle, Beacons National Park and the small town of Brecon.
Our guide called Coch Castle a fairy tale castle because it was never really a castle. Rather it was a rich man's country estate built to look like a castle. The rich man was the Marquess of Bute as in Cardiff castle. Today this castle is owned by the Welsh government and is a popular place for weddings - we saw one getting ready while we were there. We did not enter this castle, but rather walked around the outside. It is out in a forest/woody area which is what the Marquess wanted since he was looking for a country escape/hunting lodge.
Our next stop was Castle Caerphilly. This is the second largest castle in Great Britain - only Windsor is larger. It is a true castle having had many fights fought within its walls. It has not one but two moats with some islands in them. The castle was first built in 1268. As you can tell from a couple of the following pictures it is huge! We were able to explore a lot of the castle. I suspect on a regular basis they are restoring/maintaining parts of the castle. While we were there, one of the towers was off limits and covered in scaffolding. There is a tower that is leaning - I mean really leaning and is called the leaning tower. Jeff noticed it has a large iron pole supporting it these days. We also explored the dragons lair while we were there. It has a story about dragons and a couple of fake ones in the pen area. Dragons are important to the Welsh - the flag has a dragon on it.
Crossing the moat to enter
Today
leaning tower is on the left
within the castle walls
think this was the king's area upstairs
dining room in great hall
More great hall
Dragons!
2 minute drone video depicts vastness of the castle
After the two castles it was off to one of Wales' national parks. There are only 3 national parks in the country. The park is Brecon Beacons National Park. We had about an hour to wander around the park. Like much of the UK there were easy to follow walking paths in a field going up a couple of hills. We could see they went on a lot longer then we had time to enjoy. One thing that caught our eye was that some of the sheep had been shorn. It was the first time we had seen sheep that were not full of fur/hair.
shorn sheep
After the stop at the park, we went to the nearby small town for a little refreshment before we returned to Cardiff and caught our train back to Bristol.
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