Well it has been a very long time since writing in here but I just wanted to note some things of interest from my recent trip to Cardiff Wales. We stayed at Nosda Hostel near the Cardiff Central Train Station and the Avis Car Rental place was very near by. Cardiff is a lovely city that is quite small and very easy to get around in (on foot when in the city centre). Plus they have a number of charming arcades, not the kind in north america with all of the games but actually more along the lines of a side street that is covered.

We found a lovely little arcade across from Cardiff Castle called Barker Coffee and had a fabulous lunch. I had to take a picture of Cari's soup bowl as it was a ceramic pot to look like a metal one. It was a very eclectic but charming. From there we went into Cardiff Castle and I have to say that I truly enjoyed going around this castle. There is a lovely keep that you can climb with a moat. The castle was refurbished by a wealthy family in Cardiff to create a fabulous place to live. The family lived in the main residence which was built over the centuries starting from, I believe, around the 12th century. We did not purchase the guided tour ticket so were not able to see the entire house but what we were able to see was extremely lovely. The home and the grounds were gifted to the city around the 1970's. There was a Roman wall built around about the time of WWII as a bomb shelter. They had a little walk to go through which recreated the sounds of that time with an air raid siren and bombs going off. My memory is currently a little off on the history of the castle so will refresh my memory when I have a chance to read the book I bought. I did pick up some Heather Mead to bring back to Canada to try with Nick and Meagan as it will be similar to in sweetness to the fabulous Ice Wine they shared with me from Quebec.

http://www.cardiffcastle.com/

Once my friends, Chloe, Cari and Juan managed to get me out of the castle we walked over to the museum. My regret is that we did not make it there sooner as it really was a lovely museum. We saw a lot of china paterns, impressionist art that I can not say that I really appreciated a lot of, possibly because I did not understand it. I kind of think that it is a bit like the emperor and his new clothes. If it needs to be explained then you are selling an idea rather than the actual clothes or in this case art. There was a very interesting exposition for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. I did enjoy some of the paintings by a local artist but otherwise we did not have time to see a lot of the museum. http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/cardiff/

In our brief time in Cardiff I did notice that they have a healthy wedding industry. I noticed 4 bridal shops within a 3 block radius. There was a beautiful wedding going on at city hall when we passed with a very cliche worthy London bus for some unique photo ops. And when we went to eat later on at Zero Degrees, which I highly recommend, they had 5 stag parties in house at the time.

From here we walked over to the city centre. It was a lovely walk and a charming little park with a flowering apple tree was calling to me. We stopped to take some pictures. We explored the city centre a little bit, which was mostly just shops, and then picked up some groceries for our road trip the next day. Cardiff is a lovely city to walk around as it is a very nice size but it is actually pretty nice to drive around as well.
The bartender at Nosda recommended going to a micro brewery called Zero Degrees, as referenced earlier, and we all had a different pizza. The pizzas were fabulous and enjoyed by all of us. I will be trying to recreate mine at some point when I get home. It had steak cut up and put on a pesto base with a few different things but I did not try any ales. The cider was okay.
We arrived back at the hostel fairly late and I went to bed shortly thereafter to get enough sleep to enjoy the next day as the driver of our group. It is important to note that while this hostel has a very lovely location close to the train station, the car rental spot and the castle it apparently does not feel inclined to worry about providing decent beds to sleep on. Mind you if you were 18 and could sleep anywhere then I am sure this is fine.

A very enjoyable day seeing the beautiful sights of Cardiff.