And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

I talked about the first, English part of my family holiday in a previous issue. I take up the tale again as we drive across the Second Severn Crossing and into Wales.

As we drove across the Bridge into Wales, there was no noticeable change in the landscape, but suddenly all the road signs were bilingual. 'Croeso i Gymru' we were greeted (Welcome to Wales). The drive from the bridge to Cardiff doesn't take long and our satellite navigator found the hotel easily. It was a modern Holiday Inn Express, which means you get a basic room and a simple breakfast. The hotel was situated beside a giant expanse of water, which was part of the old docks of Cardiff, but now cut off from the sea and home to only waterfowl. We'd managed to get two adjacent bedrooms with an interconnecting door, so my daughters could have their own bedroom without their getting too far out of our sight.

First priority was to find an internet connection, as El was now feeling the pinch, having been 5 days without talking to her internet friends. She plugged in the laptop and soon found that there were two wireless connections available. The one provided by the hotel cost money, but the weaker one from the pub next door was free! So we passed a few hours reading and catching up on e-mails.

Later we decided to go out for some food. Cardiff, as far as the tourist is concerned, is divided into two areas: the traditional centre of the city, with all the shops and the castle; and the docks which have been renovated and now have many restaurants, squares and exhibition halls. Our hotel was only five minutes' walk from Roald Dahl Plass, the main open space in the docklands, so we strolled down to it. The Plass is named after one of Cardiff's famous people, the writer Roald Dahl. 'Plass' is the Norwegian for 'Plaza' or 'Square' to honour Dahl's Norwegian heritage. It is an old oval-shaped dock which has been filled in and paved. It's surrounded by pillars, and there's a giant fountain in the shape of a metal pillar down which water dribbles. On one side of the Plass there are exhibition buildings, including the Wales Millennium Centre, the Red Dragon Centre and the Welsh National Assembly building. On the other side are restaurants looking out on the sea. We found a nice 'gourmet burger' place and fed ourselves.

Breakfast in the hotel was not the best: there were three times as many people as there were places to sit, and much queuing for the coffee machine. Nevertheless, there was quite a decent continental breakfast.

Mrs G now headed off into the shopping area of Cardiff, while I and my science-fiction-loving daughters headed back to Roald Dahl Plass. Because in the science-fiction universe of Doctor Who, Roald Dahl Plass is the home of Torchwood, the institute that investigates alien technology. It's situated underneath the Plass and there are many shots of the Plass in episodes of Torchwood. To celebrate the Doctor Who connection, the Red Dragon Centre has an exhibition of Doctor Who bits and pieces called 'Doctor Who Up Close'. This was fascinating, with many actual costumes and props from the show. There were models of many of the aliens, a full-sized Tardis, and even a K-9. My daughters particularly liked the Dalek display. My favourite exhibit was Harriet Jones's passport and identity card.

The exhibition only took us about an hour and a half to get through, so we caught a bus to the centre of the city and met Mrs G in a coffee shop. After some strolling around and shopping, it was time for lunch and we had a delicious pizza in an ubiquitous pizza chain. Then we decided to visit the castle.

Cardiff Castle's history goes back to Roman times, and I couldn't summarise it all here, but there is a central mound with an old castle on top, all set within a much bigger castle. We saw most of the castle and were very impressed with the 19th Century halls in the living area of the bigger castle— opulence on a grand scale.

Having eaten fairly late in the afternoon, we didn't feel like anything further to eat, so we headed back to the hotel.

Today was the day we were to leave Cardiff and head to the north of Wales, but before we did so, there was one further thing to see: Techniquest. This is a science exploration building. Designed for kids, it is interesting for anybody above the age of seven with an interest in the basics of science. Unfortunately many of the visitors were much younger and it was completely wasted on them. There was lots to do here, particularly in the music section where they had, among other things, a working theremin!

After Techniquest, we had lunch in a pub with the unlikely name of SA Brain. They served Brains' Bitter. By the time we'd finished lunch it was getting quite late. We'd a long drive ahead of us. Hitting the road, we headed north along a road up one of the famous Welsh valleys into the Brecon Beacon mountains. Down into Central Wales, we eventually reached the huge inlet of the Mawddach river, where the navigator surprised us by leading us to a tiny wooden bridge with a speed limit of 5mph. Here we paid a toll (20p I think) and carefully made our way across to the town of Barmouth. At Barmouth, we bought some supplies (bread, beans, milk) because we thought our destination included cooking facilities.

A few miles further on we reached our Bed and Breakfast, a little farm above the village of Dyffryn Ardudwy. There turned out to be no cooking facilities, so we headed to a nearby restaurant where we got a beautiful view of the sun going down across the bay behind the Lleyn peninsula as we ate. A beautiful end to a long day.

I'll tell you about the farm and North Wales in the next and final instalment.

Gnomon

12.10.09 Front Page

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