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Published: December 10th 2011
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Cardiff Story Museum Sledge
The sledge was used to carry fish. You can see the video here. People used to fish on the mudflats in Cardiff Bay. It is a bit like bird banding, the bird, or in this case the fish gets caught in a net and you go along the nets and extract the fish. After a bit of a restless night, not because of the accommodations, but because of my sore throat, which tends to bother me most at night. I slept in and didn’t get up until almost 10! It being the weekend things don’t really start to open until 10 anyway so it wasn’t too bad. My first stop was the information centre, but because I already had a list of things to do, and a map from the hostel, I didn’t stay there long. I went next door to The Cardiff Story Museum. It was not a very large museum but it had a lot of interesting and interactive displays about the ancient, and more modern history of Cardiff. There was a collection of items, donated by people who used to live in Cardiff and there was a movie that showed a little bit of the history of the item and who it belonged to. It was quite interesting. Two that stuck in my mind were about a fish sledge and baking tray. *See photo’s for story* After that I walked along Queen Street and the shopping district. There was a farmers market and I went in there for a bite to
Cardiff Story Museum Clark’s Pies
Clark’s Pies or Clarkies are a well known meat pie developed in Cardiff. It was established in 1909 by Mary Clark and her recipe is still a family secret. eat. After that my next stop was Cardiff Castle. There is actually a lot to see and do there. There is an audio tour of the grounds and keep which gave a bit of the history of the castle. They also had an exhibit called Firing Line, which was all about the Welsh soldiers from 1685 to the present day. I ‘upgraded’ my ticket to include a guided tour of the Castle Apartments. With the guided tour we got to go to special rooms that the general public are not allowed in. We went to the clock tower, the nursery, the sitting room and the other tower and roof top garden. The guide we were with did not want us taking pictures while she was talking, or even in the room, because of things ending up on twitter and flickr. In most of the rooms and the end she would give us a moment to take a few pictures, except for the sitting room, which made me sad because I really liked that room and would have loved to take some pictures in there. You were allowed to walk along the battlements. There was one section in which they had
Farmer's Market 1
Entrance, or Exit. covered the windows, known as the Wartime Tunnels. There was not much in there but they did have speakers which had “war sounds”. The Prime Minister announcing the start of the war, airplanes, bombing and so on. It was constant as you walked through the tunnel and even though I have been to many World War museums and sights having the constant noise really gives you an impression of what it must have been like to huddle in your bunker having no idea what was going on outside, save that it could not be good. Once I had finished my tour of the Castle, I went to find the Natural History Museum. On my way there I stumbled into the Christmas fair. These Christmas fairs remind me a bit of little Calgary Stampedes (just colder)! This one had a large skating rink for people to try skating. I went through the fair and into the Natural History Museum. Most natural history museums are very similar, and this one was no exception. It did have some good information and a lot of interesting displays and dioramas. I spent the rest of the evening going through the ground floor but ran out
of time to go up to the second floor. The second floor is mainly just art though so I was not too disappointed. Tomorrow I am planning to go down and do Cardiff Bay.
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