cardiff castle

The main structure in the city centre, peering over all roads, buildings and arcades (the closed shopping areas with narrow lanes, small shops and round roofs – usually glass – old school shopping style) is Cardiff castle. This castle is built over roman remains, of which very little remains… seriously, these remains are a few bricks that used to be a wall and a few other bricks that used to be a part of a road. The castle itself was rebuilt a few times and held by various nobility. Whether this means dukes, lords, sires or other knights – I am not exactly sure – but they probably all loved fish and chips and ate leeks that were way, way, way boiled.



In the 1800s a new noble man took over the castle, Bute was his name, and reconstructed it to what it is today. He put in a variety of decorations, spanning different decades, different periods, different styles – and different political statements. For instance, the library is full of little carved out monkeys, some with sunglasses, others making faces. They say this was a caricature poking fun of the famous Chuck Darwin who of course was born in Wales. (actually he wasn’t, but why not give it a try…).

The colours of the rooms are vivid, the drawings go between strange to amusing to biblical. Sometimes, they are all three at the same time. Lord Bute spent a lot of money on this castle bringing it to what it is. He put in rooms and named them names that can only be considered ridiculous now days, but back then must have had some sort of ‘noble-high’ meaning - names such as the bachelor room, the arab room… still, he only spent 6 weeks a year here…


The castle wall is extensive and covers a huge area. One can only imagine peasants back in the day sneaking in on romantic adventures, to have a picnic in the castle grass. Now days, peasants are allowed in with a symbolic fee of 9 pounds – sometimes even to enjoy a cheese fair in the castle grounds! Either way, different animals guard the castle. The fact that these animals are made of concrete and have nothing to do with the ones that live in this country, do not stop them from protecting the castle, intimidating babies, and causing tourists to stop and take pictures with them. Ahem.

Bute did a lot for Cardiff, from reconstruction of the castle, to rebuilding parts of the city and to simply spending money here. A huge and beautiful park stands behind the castle with massive green areas and a river running through it. Its really beautiful and has traditional English gardens, colourful and wintery, all year long. The park is called, naturally, Bute park. Its one of the nicer parts of the city and follows the river for a bit of time. In fact, there is a bike trail called the taft trail (having to do with river in Welsh) which follows the river through the park, and then eventually out of town.

3 days of rain in a row.