UK Trip: Cardiff

The Mouth of the Severn.

On Sunday, we left Canterbury for the next stop on our British tour (and the last stop starting with a "Ca"!). We took the bus to London (stopping along in the way in a very strange new shopping center that appeared to be located in the bottom of an old quarry) and then transferred to a bus to Cardiff, Wales. Essentially, we traveled across most of the width of England by bus, arriving in Cardiff mid-afternoon. Traveling by bus (or train, for that matter) is really quite a nice way to see the countryside. Starting from Canterbury, I commented to Lisa that, while the rolling hills in the area were very nice, early English settlers in America must have been completely flabbergasted by the size of the rivers and forests and the Appalachians when they first saw them. By the time we got to South Wales, though, I changed my tune. Settlers from that region would not have been surprised at all by the American landscape! But unfortunately for me, I slept through one of the more dramatic parts of the western English/eastern Welsh landscape - the Severn Estuary, where the River Severn (the longest river in Britain) empties into the Atlantic. Lisa told me later it was a pretty impressive river and bridge.

Cardiff, full of people.

Once in Cardiff, we walked from the train station (where the bus dropped us off) to our hotel, one of the rather nondescript budget hotels that are part of the Ibis chain here in Europe. After dropping off our bags, we headed out to see what we could of Cardiff in the few hours of daylight we had left. Central Cardiff is an amazingly compact area. A ten minute walk is about all you need to cross it. We were also amazed at how many pedestrian-only zones there were and how many people were out walking and shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe we've gotten used to France where everything shuts down on Sundays, but, as Lisa said, Cardiff may be one of the most people-filled cities we've been in.

We ended up at Cardiff Castle, which is a very cool place. It dates back to the Norman conquest of

Interior of Cardiff Castle with the Norman keep.

The house in the castle.

England in the late eleventh century, but there are plenty of more modern parts, too. We started in the house because the guy at the ticket window said it was the part of the castle that closed first. The house was built in the 1870s by the last family to own the castle and it's all in a faux-medieval style with lots of stained glass, painted wall scenes, and dark wood. The dining room had a balcony for musicians to perform, just like a medieval castle hall would have had, and the library was decorated with coats of arms and wooden carvings above the fireplace meant to symbolize ancient languages like Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian, and Hebrew. The whole place was pretty over-the-top, but it would have been quite an amazing place to live! We then left the mansion part and climbed to the top of the old Norman keep in the center of the castle. The view to the south over the city of Cardiff was obscured by all the new construction (especially the soccer stadium) but the view to the north over the hills of South Wales was very picturesque. After the keep, we

Wartime tunnels in the castle wall.

checked out the World War II-era tunnels built into the exterior wall of the castle to protect the population of Cardiff from German air raids. We then walked around the castle green for a little bit before leaving the castle about five minutes before closing at 5 pm. I'm pretty sure there only two people in there who left after we did!

The dining room. (Remember, it's not actually medieval.)

The library.

Euripides in the library.

The five ancient languages.

Wall decorations.

 
We wandered around a little bit and stumbled upon the St. John the Baptist parish church in the center of Cardiff, part of the Church in Wales (their version of the Anglican Church). We saw they had an evensong service at 6 so we decided to stick around for that. We looked around the church, which was very pretty and mostly (I think) from the 19th century. The service was preceded by some fantastic bell-laying in the belfry and the service itself was quite nice. There were about a dozen people or so there and (since there was no choir) a lot more congregational interaction that at the King's College evensong on Friday night. Afterwards, an older gentleman chatted with us, as did the vicar. They were both very pleasant and, after hearing that we were going to Tintern Abbey the next day, the vicar told us about her 70-mile walk along the River Wye that she had once done. Both of them seemed very glad that we were visiting Cardiff and Wales.

View of northern Cardiff from the Norman keep in the castle.

We had dinner across the street at a pub so I could get some fish and chips. More importantly, I had a local ale, Double Dragon, which was quite good and - Lisa liked it! This is a first in our relationship, me having a beer that she actually likes, too. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll able to find this beer in the US so now the challenge is to find a beer in America that Lisa will drink. Following dinner, we found a taxi stand to get a cab back to the hotel because we didn't want to walk back in the dark. When we climbed in and told the driver where we were going, he said it was just a five-minute walk away and that there was no reason for him to take us! He gave us directions and we walked, although I think it was a bit longer than five minutes!

Aaron in the stocks.

Lisa not in the stocks, with Cardiff
behind her.

Most of Monday was spent in Chepstow and at Tintern Abbey (about 35 or 40 miles east of Cardiff) so Sunday afternoon was really our only time in Cardiff. It seemed like a nice city, but by and large, it didn't seem like there was a lot to do there other than shopping and sports (both soccer and rugby are very big there). In fairness, though, we didn't make it to the National Museum of Wales (which is supposed to have some cool exhibits) nor down to Cardiff Bay (which is supposed to be a revitalized area of town full of restaurants and bars and a nature trail in what was the city's old coal port). Still, the highlight of the trip to Wales was Chepstow and Tintern Abbey, which we'll tell you about in the next entry.