Wales Vacation - Day 1

We got off from Croughton around 9AM and heading out to Cardiff. As soon as we crossed the border into Wales all the street signs were in both English and Welsh (English listed first).

Our first stop was at Caerphilly Castle, which lies just north of Cardiff in the small valley town of Caerphilly. The castle lies right in the middle of the town at the bottom of the hill that leads into town. We got a 7 days pass from Cadw (Welsh Heritage) which gave us free admission to all properties under the managements of Cadw.

It was an amazing sight seeing the castle’s towers rise up behind houses and businesses. You could climb up a number of the towers and also climb over/across some of the remnants of castle walls.

We just got a few sandwiches and headed off to downtown Cardiff. The only hard part of the drive on the first day was parking in the car park in the center of town. The car park was right next to the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff Castle was our next stop.

After WWII the Bute family gave the castle to the city. We took a tour of the castle and got to see a number of rooms. The paintings on the children’s bedroom had scenes from various fairy tales. My favorite room was the Arab Room because of the very ornate ceiling. After the tour of the main house we climbed the high stairs to the Keep. It is the only original section of the 12th century castle remaining. The view from the top of the Keep was amazing.

The last part of the castle that we saw was the remnants of a wall dating back to the original stone castle built by the Romans back in 77AD. It was covered during the Norman era and preserved in great shape. It is 8-10 feet thick.

At this point we decided to call it a day and headed to the Travelodge for the night. It was exactly what we wanted. Throughout this trip restaurants and gas stations were always in the same complex with the Travelodges.