Cardiff day trip Thursday 19th of June 2008

After my day trip to Portsmouth fell by the wayside (busy aunts & sick aunts) I was pretty excited to head off to Cardiff in Wales today for a bit of a day trip. Id already sussed out the ticket to buy with James (my cousin Lauren´s fiance) help, but to give you and indication of the prices of train tickets here it was 52 pounds (around $120 aussie or so) which I suppose isnt bad considering I went a fair distance.

The tricky bit was changing stations at Reading, although I had plenty of time between connecting trains. Thing was, there was no handy dandy big display listing all the trains & platforms that was accessible INSIDE the station (ie without using your ticket to leave the station - which i couldnt do) so I nicked around a few platforms and sort of thought where I should go, but ended up asking (oh the humiliation to my manhood ... having to ASK ... kidding!) anyway, turned out I was in the right spot.

At the moment the races are on at Royal Ascot (James was spewing as he realised he would have had an excuse with me being here to take time off work to go) so there were quite a few dressed up guys and gals strutting there stuff whilst I waited for my train (Reading seems to be an way point for trains).

A comment on the trains of UK here. There simply is no comparison to the Vline trains. The UK ones are fast, smooth and modern and the second train i caught, the economy reserved seats were equivalent to first class in australia with more leg room & a tray (no reclining tho) and im not totally sure but I think you can plug laptops into each seat so they use power rather than their batteries.

When i finally got to Cardiff the weather was brilliant, if a bit chilly with the wind (reminded me of Warrnambool weather actually). Cardiff is a place going ahead with seemingly quite a bit of new buildings and renovations happening in the centre of the city.

I had no idea where I was going so my first stop when I walked out of the platforms was to find the information desk at the station. Thankfully there were photocopies of a map of the centre of the city and the bay area which was detailed enough but only on an a4 sized piece of paper so I wouldn´t look a complete Mr Obvious Tourist.

Having said that, I got myself lost by not referencing myself on the map properly within two streets. Happily the city father´s had known I was coming and put lots of touristy information signposts pointing to the bits I wanted to go to (like Cardiff Castle) so I was ´unlost´ in moments. Well that happened too when I saw the big naff off stadium.

At the castle they told me there was a video presentation to go to, then i could go on guided tour of the mansion part of the castle that had been the home of the Maquis de Bute (this is from memory, i better google this later) who had a monopoly on the coal in wales and its export for several generations until it was nationalised.

Hmmm could have skipped the video presentation as it was just ummmmm wanky! I think they tried to present it at a level for school kids but it came off just really dumb and really didnt convey much information ... basically it was two teenagers being chased around cardiff by the various inhabitants of the castle throughout its history and a bit of a graphic of what it looked like over the time ...

The guided tour on the other hand was great. The house has been kept more or less as it was when the family handed it over to the city in 1947. So it definitely has a lived in feel. Was not allowed to take pictures unfortunately.

After that I went up to the actual keep itself which was a ruin, having been irreparably damaged during the English Civil War in the 1640´s

I grabbed a quick bite at the castle and then walked to find the information centre and asked how long walking to the bay area would take, and as it was only 30 mins (translate to 20 mins for me) I walked there. Funny how things look very different on TV, by which I mean I went to the Millenium Centre that has been featured in Dr Who and more in Torchwood. Although there was stuff being set up so my photographs are not going to look great, but I did get a picture of myself in front of what i think is the back entrance to Torchwood.

After a wander around the foreshore area, I walked up to a cinema complex that also hosted a Dr Who exhibition with some of costumes and props from Dr Who. So more photos there.

The rest of the day I wandered around and eventually decided to have a beer whilst I waited for my train back to Guildford. Tried a local ale called Brain which was okay, but decided to finished off with a Guiness.

Trains were a bit late so my admiration of the efficiency of the rail system here was a bit dented! But at least they explained why fairly promptly and we made up the time.

I enjoyed the day in Cardiff, but I think Edinburgh was still my favourite place so far on this trip.

2163 photographs is the count so far. Some of you may have seen the random ones I´ve stuck up on facebook. I promise promise promise when I get back on Thursday I will have a gallery up on somewhere (flickr etc).