Wednesday 22 September 2010

Wales - Aug/Sept

We were in Wales for a few days at the beginning of the month and as usual I took lots of photos, a few of which I thought I'd share. That particular week we struck gold with the weather and had a glorious few days of sunshine which wasn't too hot for comfort. The following week it poured down and we wouldn't have been half as free to wander as we were. Anyway, August Bank holiday saw us in Cardiff and we discovered a lovely little town called Penarth where they have a wonderful cliff-top promenade area for walking.



The view up-river. If you click a couple of times you can just see the bridge that crosses the Bristol Channel:



Down-river. The view is across to England and the coast of Somerset. The islands are Flatholm and Steepholm. The next indistinct bump is The Quantocks in Somerset, close to where we used to live, and the next bump is actually part of the mainland - Weston-super-Mare.



The next day we took the park and ride into Cardiff itself. Brilliant. Hubby didn't have to drive into the city, find somewhere to park and so on and so on. Recommend it to anyone.

Cardiff Castle. We didn't do the tour as we thought that the charge of almost £10 was a bit steep.





Next, it was onto the open top tour bus and down to Cardiff Bay where we were planning to see the Dr. Who exhibition. There as well is The Cardiff Millenium Centre for all things opera, ballet, musicals and so on. The Torchwood connection is that the lift from The Hub comes up here somewhere but as there were building works going on, it wasn't very obvious where exactly. But the building is amazing:



Inside the entertainment complex, where the Dr. Who exhibition was, I spotted this rather wonderful muriel:





The Dr. Who exhibition... Cybermen, Daleks etc... all great fun:









From there it was but a short stroll to Mermaid Wharf where we saw the Welsh National Assembly building:



A carousel:



A building I can't name but I loved the Victorian tower.



And this view where we sat and ate a picnic lunch along with loads of others out enjoying the end of summer sunshine.



This is across Cardiff Bay to Penarth, on the headland, where we'd been the day before. I have to say we fell completely in love with Cardiff and its beautiful surrounding countryside and coastline. So much to see and do, the people all so friendly - just an all round brilliant city. More photos to come as that's only about half of them!

14 comments:

verity said...

What a lovely place for a break - I've never been to Cardiff

Cath said...

Verity: nor had we. Seen much of the rest of Wales but never its capital city. Converted now and hope to go back before too long. And the whole of the S. Wales coast is delightful... a bit like Devon and Cornwall.

DesLily said...

wow Cath!! I didn't know you hadn't seen it before! Fabulous for you and Peter to still be able to see things you haven't seen !! Great pictures!!! (I knew they would be! lol)

Val said...

The sea looks lovely and it looks like there is a lot to see in Cardiff! Love the Dr Who :0)

(aren't Park and Ride's great)

Anonymous said...

Cath, that cliffside walking path is very appealing. Lovely blue skies. Sounds like a fun time was had by all!

Cath said...

Pat: Nope, never been to Cardiff before but am certainly going again. Actually... am going with my daughter and grandson next month to take him to a Fireman Sam concert. lol. To tell the truth there's still a few parts of the UK we've never seen.

Val: we were very surprised at how much Cardiff has to offer. And yes, park and rides are a brilliant idea.

Kay: We went back to that cliffside walk a couple of times while we were there, just to enjoy the view. One time we sat and had a picnic lunch. Was so peaceful.

Scott said...

Lovely trip, nice photos

Cath said...

Thanks, Scott. We really did have a brilliant time.

Vintage Reading said...

We drove all the way to Cardiff just for the Dr Who exhibition a couple of years ago as one of my daughters loved the programme. It's a lot smaller inside than you expect isn't it? Great to see pics of lovely Cardiff.

Cath said...

Nicola: Yes, it's not all that big, but a friend had visited it and told me so I wasn't expecting anything huge. And we were in Cardiff anyway, so it was fine.

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

Hi Cath,

Lovely photos.

We have been married for 31 years, lived in Somerset for 21 years, yet have never ventured far into Wales, except for Newport City centre, to collect passports.

We were introduced to properly by our sister-in-law, who insisted that we spend a long weekend in Tenby, which we loved.

Since then we have discovered the Gower Peninsula and the beautiful Rhossili Bay, and parts of North Wales, including the lovely Llandudno.

We have never thought about Cardiff itself, but your pictures are definitely an inecntive to pay a visit real soon

Cath said...

fiction-books: I've already been talking to you on Twitter but 'hello' nice to meet you.

If you check my 2 posts for August you'll see that one of them comprises photos of Tenby. We've discovered Premier Inn's bargain rooms and stayed in Llanelli in July. While there we popped over to Tenby and loved it. Lovely little town. Of course Llanelli is very close to the Gower so we were able to see a bit of that too.

Our trip to Cardiff was also a Premier Inn break and I can't recommend it highly enough. A lovely city with a lot to see and do.

At the end of November we're off again... this time to Cwmbran, which will give us easy access to The Brecon Beacons.

I don't know your part of Somerset all that well but my husband was brought up in Somerset - in the Chard area. And we're only 10 mins from the Somerset border ourselves.

Susan said...

Cath: lovely photos! and I can't believe there is a Dr Who exhibition, wait until I show my daughter these pictures. I so want to visit Wales one day, and your photo tour is making me anxious to go! thank you for sharing so much.

Cath said...

Susan: glad you enjoyed the photos. (I have more which I must put up this week.) Cardiff is such a nice city and easily accessible from anywhere in England as it's only about half an hour over the border. Yes! A Dr Who exhibition! It's not huge but is a lot of fun. Sadly, John Barrowman didn't choose that day to jump out at us from behind a Dalek! LOL. Off to see him in concert on Thursday. :-)