A New Adventure - Home to Cardiff

It was a cold and frosty morning when we left home on Friday to drive to Sydney.

We flew out mid afternoon with Singapore Airlines.

Of course we had to take our usual selfie at the start of the flight.

There was a brief stopover at Singapore before we arrived in Heathrow at 5.30am, after our 23 hour flight.

Next we hopped on a train to the lovely Paddington Station.

Where we hopped on another train to Cardiff in Wales.  Why Cardiff?  Well, we have toured quite a lot of the UK but have not really touched on Wales before.

It was a glorious blue summers day when we left London, but as we travelled west the cloud cover increased. By the time we reached Cardiff it was full cloud cover.

Our hotel was perfectly located, being close to the train station and also right in the centre of the city.

By late morning we were ready to start exploring, just as it started to drizzle.  It proceeded to rain for the rest of the afternoon.  We had to chuckle, as they have had hot dry weather for the last month.

The main street looked nice and cheery with the floral displays.

We discovered some lovely little arcades.

And stumbled upon the Cardiff Markets.

Where we bought a punnet of delicious big British cherries.

Some Welsh Cakes may have been purchased from this stall.

There were all types of stalls.  One just sold umbrellas.  Mick purchased one, as we had forgotten to pack his.  We always say that if we forget something "there are shops".  This came into play.

We found a nice little tea shop in one of the arcades for lunch.

We went for a walk along the River Taff to collect our hire care and were pleased to see that they are painting water towers over here too.

Back in the city, there are modern buildings as well as the old.

We still had plenty of time, so headed off to visit Cardiff Castle.  Everything is so nice and close.

The castle was interesting to wander around. 

No one seemed worried by the wet weather, but I'm sure it would have been much more crowded had the weather been fine.

The old and the new - with the Millenium Stadium in the background.

There was a wedding reception taking place in one section and the bridal car was rather lovely -  a Beauford, which I've never heard of before.

One section of the castle was the home of the owners.  After the bare keep, it was rather sumptuous.

The Arabian Room was extremely lavish.  The ceiling.

The floor.

 The dining room ceiling.

The drawing room was redone in the mid 20th century as the lady of the house found the existing decorations to heavy.

The library was another amazing space.

I was fascinated by the beautiful locks on the drawers in the display cabinets.

I was enchanted by this huge old spreading tree.  It was a Home Oak, a variety I'd never heard of before.

The clock tower was highly decorated as well.

Another interesting building in the city is the Cathedral.

The interior is fairly simply decorated with a barrelled timber ceiling.

By now we were starting to feel a little tired, so headed back to the hotel to take  a nap prior to going out to get some dinner.  However, that never happened and we slept for about 12 hours.

It had been a big day.  We had no real expectations of what we would see in Cardiff and really enjoyed our brief visit.

Now to start our mystery tour of the rest of Wales.