Our Day Exploring Cardiff

Before Claudio arrived in Europe, I'd made a list of places for us to visit together in the UK, and Cardiff was one of the places on that list. I'd been there back in January last year and really enjoyed exploring the city, especially the castle. However, by the time Claudio got here, non-essential travel to Wales was banned, so we thought we wouldn't be able to go. But fortunately, after Lockdown 2 was over, we were allowed to travel from England to Wales for tourism purposes. I was very happy that we had the chance to visit another country in the UK!

We took the train to Cardiff from Swindon, which was actually an unexpectedly memorable experience. A man on the train wearing a balaclava was acting strangely, and went and hid in the toilet for most of the journey. Once we arrived in Cardiff, he finally emerged and we could hear him being questioned by the staff and telling them that his name was "Wolf". And then after we'd passed the ticket barriers, we saw him go through, following right behind someone else (as he didn't have a ticket). The station staff started shouting at him, but he ran outside before they could catch him. It was a weird, but also entertaining start to the day!

When we got outside, we discovered that it was absolutely tipping it down with rain - not ideal for sightseeing. But we decided to persevere!

Naturally, we headed for the castle, and on our way there we saw the impressive St John the Baptist Church, the only medieval building in the city apart from the castle.

Then we went inside the grounds of the castle! The interior wasn't open to visitors, but the public square was free to enter. It was very quiet, but there was a lot going on there compared to the previous time I'd visited, including a German Christmas market, a Christmas lights display, and an Alice in Wonderland display.

Claudio was really amazed by the castle, and he said that it was one of the best things he'd seen in the UK. It really is a dramatic-looking place, especially in the rainy weather.

Next we went to Bute Park, which is just next to the castle. It was very muddy there but still a nice place to walk. This is where you can find the Gorsedd Stone Circle, which looks very similar to Avebury but which was actually installed in 1978!

There are also great views of the castle from the park. 

The next place we went to see was the City Hall, a very grand and beautiful building.

After having lunch in St David's Dewi Sant mall, we went off to explore another part of the city, Cardiff Bay. I hadn't managed to go there on my previous visit, as it's quite a long way from the city centre, and I'd ran out of time. 

Luckily this time, I had some Uber vouchers courtesy of my side hustle doing online surveys, so it only took us 5 minutes to get down there.

Cardiff Bay looks like the ocean, but it's actually a man-made lake, with the sea just beyond its boundaries. The part we arrived in was a retail area called Mermaid Quay (what a name!) and it was a very attractive place. We were quite intrigued as to why there were Swedish flags there!

Many of the capital's most famous buildings are in the bay, including the Pierhead Building...

...the Senedd, which is the Welsh parliament building...

...the Millennium Centre...

...and the Norwegian Church. This is actually now an arts centre with a café, but unfortunately it's closed at the moment. It was still very cool to see such a typically Scandinavian building in the UK. It brought back memories of Skansen in Stockholm!

After exploring Cardiff Bay, we took the Uber back to the train station and just managed to board the train with a minute to spare! It had been a very tiring and rainy day in the capital of Wales, but we had had a fantastic time.

Claudio really enjoyed visiting Wales for the first time, and we'd like to go back there again and see different parts of the country. Here's hoping we can do that in the relatively near future!