Cardiff Castle and the journey home

We had breakfast and then checked out of the hotel this morning.  We walked over to Cardiff Castle and had a good explore - it has a lot of interesting history and has a museum of Welsh military history called "In the Firing Line".  It is an exhibition commemorating over 300 years of proud and distinguished history including the Battle of Waterloo 1815, Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus 1879 as well as recent service in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

We had lunch at another nice little independent restaurant called Minuet and then had a look around the museum of Wales followed by a trip into Cardiff's Winter Wonderland and then the train back home.  It had been a fun trip and the bonus was that we had had some decorating done at home while we'd been away!

It was good to get another first class train home (Advance firsts are cheap) but rather disappointing that the first class lounge at Cardiff Station is not open at the weekends - we'd not have got there quite so early if we had known that!

Exploring Cardiff and a ballet

We got up fairly early today and had a nice breakfast in the hotel.  We had a good explore of Cardiff and had a look at its covered market.  It's clear that the council in Cardiff looks after it much better than Oxford City Council does the one in Oxford!  We visited St John the Baptist church and had a nice coffee there then joined an old University friend for lunch in the Gourment Burger Kitchen near the central library.  It was good to catch up.

After a bit more exploring we went back to the hotel for a rest and to take advantage of its nice spa.  The evening was spent at St David's hall at a performance of the ballet  Swan Lake by the Russian National Ballet and The Siberian National Ballet .  It was very enjoyable.   Afterwards we had dinner at a gorgeous Portuguese restaurant called Madeira - the food was excellent and served on skewers that hung from hooks in the ceiling!  It just shows that independent restaurants are often so much nicer than faceless chains with indifferent staff.

We had a drink afterwards at a famous pub called the Golden Cross and then went back to the hotel for bed.

A new year trip to Cardiff

After a busy Christmas and new year we thought a trip down to Cardiff for a couple of nights would be fun. We left this morning on a first class train and arrived in Cardiff around lunchtime.  While on the train I'd had an email from Strada with a lunch offer so we went and tried the one in Cardiff bay.  The food was fine but the service was awful.

After lunch we had a wander around the bay, visiting the Millennium Centre, the Norwegian Wooden church and the Senedd - the Welsh Parliament building.  We got a train then back into central Cardiff and booked into our hotel, the Hilton, which was pleasant.

Our evening consisted of a trip back to the Millenium Centre to see Singin' in the Rain.  It was a good performance and I've never seen so much water on a stage!  We got a bus back into town afterwards and visited a few bars before turning in for the night.