Castles, Brains, and Tuna Salad


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Europe » United Kingdom » Wales » Cardiff
September 11th 2011
Published: September 11th 2011
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Another Celtic adventure awaited me as I boarded my London Victoria bus headed for the Welsh capital of Cardiff. My first fail of the trip came swiftly, this time in the form of a tuna salad dinner from Marks & Spencers. I've bought prepackaged meals from them before, and while I can never actually see any sign of plastic cutlery before opening them, I've always found one hiding under the lid somewhere. Not this time. I quickly realised my mistake after tearing off the non-resealable plastic top, and stared blankly at it for a while, the messy layer of mayo on the top mocking my lack of utensils. The Czech girl sitting next to me sure got a kick out of watching me eat the entire thing using only the lid of my fruit smoothie bottle, while balancing a lid-less smoothie between my legs! (That'll teach me for trying to be healthy!) Salad notwithstanding I made it to Wales successfully by 10pm, where I was gratefully picked up by my ex-flatmate from Auckland, Ruth, who would be my Welsh tour-guide for the weekend.

Plonked smack-bang in the center of the city is Castell Cardiff, the first item on our agenda the next day. Oh, it's not a typo folks, that's just how you spell "Castle" in Welsh! Pretty much every sign in Cardiff seems to have both English and Welsh, which I like, even though there are apparently very few people around who still actively speak it. Much like Maori in New Zealand, kids are still taught Welsh at school so Ruth happily translated for me where she could (often showing off her ability to pronounce the unpronounceable, like 'LL' which according to this site is "an aspirated 'l' which does not occur in English, sounded by placing the tongue so as to say 'l' and hissing out of one side of the mouth").

Even though the main streets of the city are literally just across the road from the castle walls, upon walking through the main entrance we were instantly transported to another time, where knights and kings ruled the land. It's a surprisingly massive expanse of grassy land inside the walls too, with an inner castle and moat in the distance like one of those Russian Matryoshka dolls. Also cool is the fact that it was originally a Roman fortress, so the walls were first put in place some 2000 years or so ago (Although a lot of it has been rebuilt since). Even though most of of the internal structures are no longer standing, it still gets 7/10 on my cool castle scale.

After exiting the castle we were instantly transported to another time as well: lunch time! We did our own walking tour around the many pedestrianised streets and through the "international shopping center of the year 2010" in search of sustenance. Once our appetites had been satisfied with a pub lunch, we took a walk to the famed Millenium Stadium, where Cardiff hosted the first Rugby World Cup game back in 1999. This is quite appropriate too, seeing as the first RWC game of 2011 had only just been played the day before. Since I'm missing out on all the buzz in Auckland, it's nice to at least see something Rugby World Cup related!

Next up was a car ride to Cardiff Bay, which is like the waterfront of Cardiff, with bars and restaurants along the seaside as well as the Millenium Center, another venue for events and shows in Cardiff. We stopped for a drink here so I could have my first Welsh beer: Brains! After a rest for our weary tourist feet we hit the town for some more Brains and a local culture experience with some of Ruth's Welsh mates.

After a hungover morning watching South Africa narrowly defeat Wales in the Rugby World Cup (thankfully, after all the trash talk I'd been giving Ruth while supporting my country of birth!), we had time for one more fairytale castle (Castell Coch) and traditional pub lunch before I had to say goodbye to Ruth and catch my bus back to London (I only arrived home about 3 hours ago too, so I think that makes this my speediest blog ever!). I'm definitely earmarking Wales for a future trip so I can do some proper exploring outside of Cardiff. I'll be back, Wales!


Additional photos below
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The wartime tunnelsThe wartime tunnels
The wartime tunnels

under the castle walls
An Indiana Jones-like holeAn Indiana Jones-like hole
An Indiana Jones-like hole

Which Ruth accepted a dare to put her hand into.


18th September 2011

Yey a wales blog!! You\'re very good with words, you described Cardiff very well indeed, allthough you did forget to mention that we are buying Castell coch and turning it into a party castell.
22nd September 2011

Thanks Ruth! As for Castell Coch, I thought we were keeping it on the down-low... :-O But I'm still all for your "waterslide into a middle swimming pool" idea!

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