Sarah: Cardiff, Wales - My first real castle!

Trip Start Dec 27, 2007
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Trip End Dec 28, 2008


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Where I stayed
Abby and Huw
(Cardiff hotels)

Flag of United Kingdom  , Wales,
Sunday, June 22, 2008

So from Bath onto Cardiff. A late town bus in Bath (by 20 mins) meant we missed our connection in Bristol, had to buy new tickets, and a trip which was supposed to take 2 hours ended up taking 7! Ah, travelling. After a lovely first night with Abby and Huw, which included fresh, yummy pies from the local takeaways, we headed in to Cardiff to make the most of our one day in Wales. First stop was Cardiff Castle - Wow!  The Romans (again) built the orginal walls, mounds and ditches and used the site as a fort. The Normans added to it around 1100AD and the Norman keep still stands in the middle of the grounds (with a real moat and everything! Cool! I climbed to the top of it and imagined the medieval knights and soldiers fighting their enemies with swords, bows and arrows after they had breached the outer castle walls - the keep is the last stand.  We took a walk around the battlements and a tour through the main castle - reconstructed in the 19th century by the third Marquis of Bute, at the time the richest man in the world. It's constructed in the Victorian idea of medieval gothic style (apparently the Victorians were fascinated by all things medieval) and is so incredibly ornate, intricate and opulent. For instance, many of the
rooms have ceilings which are covered in 22 carat gold leaf! Every room is custom-painted with thousands of individual images of kings, queens, knights, angels, saints, martyrs and fairytale characters. The man would have spent MILLIONS of pounds (yes, back then) - he owned half of Britain apparently, and had as much money as the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria - and it shows! Apparently he could speak, read or write, to varying degrees, in 21 languages. We weren't allowed to take photos of the interior unfortunately but I sneaked one of our last stop - the library - a series of sculptures showing the progression of language from Runes, to Egyptian hieroglyphics, to Aramaic, Syrian? and Greek.

After several hours in the Castle, we dragged ourselves away and over to the next block where stands Cardiff Arms Park and the Millenium Stadium. The Stadium has replaced the famous Cardiff Arms Park, but there is a smaller ground beside it with the same name, (perhaps the original) which has been there for 132 years and is one of the oldest rugby grounds in Britain. Of course Ray had to get a photo and walk on the ground. He then took a tour of the Millenium Stadium. Being a multi-purpose stadium, they have to import the soil and grass and lay it each time there is a football or rugby game. It costs them 80 000 pounds and takes a whole week to put it down. They also have rock concerts there of course, and the tour guide said that they made more from the last Madonna concert than from the entire football season when Chelsea and Man U among others, came to play. Evidently, Madonna is coming back in the next few weeks, and has asked that the toilet in the changing/dressing room be changed because she doesn't want to use the same toilet as all those dirty rugby players!

We spent the rest of the afternoon down in Cardiff Bay, a really pretty area with many cafes and restaurants along the port and home to the Millenium Centre, Roald Dahl Plaza (he was born in Cardiff to Norwegian parents, and we saw the lovely little Norwegian church at which they worshipped) and possibly the world's most beautiful merry-go-round. We wished we had had more time to see Cardiff and Wales.
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