Cardiff became the capital of Wales in 1955 and a city in 1905. It is young, for a capital. The youth shows, not in a lack of history, because the history runs deep, but in the energy. The castle has been here for 2,000 years. The arcades have been here since the Victorians. The rugby has been here since 1876. But the city feels like it is still deciding what it wants to be, and that uncertainty makes it more interesting than capitals that settled on an identity centuries ago.
In This Article
The Castle in the City Centre
Cardiff Castle sits inside the city walls on a site that has been fortified since the Romans built a fort here in the 1st century CE. The Norman motte, the 12th-century keep, and the Victorian Gothic fantasy, a palace inside a castle, designed by William Burges for the 3rd Marquess of Bute, who was at the time the richest man in the world, share the same walled compound. The Arab Room inside the castle is a riot of gold leaf, stained glass, and Islamic geometric patterns that look like they were airlifted from the Alhambra. The tour of the wartime tunnels, the air-raid shelters built into the castle walls during the Second World War, is unexpectedly moving. The castle costs £14.50 for adults. The keep is free to climb from inside the compound. The view from the top, the city spread out below, the Principality Stadium a silver dome in the distance, justifies the stairs.
Bute Park and the River Taff
Bute Park stretches for 130 acres along the River Taff, the castle at one end and the sports village at the other. It is the most central urban green space of any British city. The trees, a collection of champion trees, the largest or oldest of their species in Britain, were planted by the Bute family in the 19th century. The boardwalk along the river runs past the Blackweir, where the water rushes over a weir built in the 1830s and the herons stand motionless. The park is free and open 24 hours.
The Victorian Arcades
Cardiff has seven Victorian and Edwardian arcades, Castle Arcade, High Street Arcade, Duke Street Arcade, Morgan Arcade, Royal Arcade, Wyndham Arcade, and Dominion Arcade, and together they form the most complete set of Victorian shopping arcades in Britain. The cast-iron and glass, the mosaic floors, the independent shops. The record shop in Morgan Arcade has been trading since 1894. The cheese shop in Castle Arcade sells Welsh cheeses, the Perl Las blue, the Gorwydd Caerphilly, that are made within 50 km. The arcades are free to walk and populated by shops that have resisted the homogenisation of the high street.
Cardiff Bay
The docklands were transformed in the 1990s with a barrage that created a 500-acre freshwater lake. The Wales Millennium Centre, the copper facade inscribed with Welsh and English poetry, is the opera house and the symbol of the regeneration. The Senedd, the Welsh Parliament building, is a sustainable design by Richard Rogers: the funnel, the public gallery, the transparency of the democratic process made physical. The Norwegian Church, where Roald Dahl was baptised, is now a café. The Bay is a 25-minute walk from the city centre along the Taff Trail.
Principality Stadium
The national stadium of Wales seats 74,500 and sits on the site of the old National Stadium, the Arms Park. The retractable roof, the first of its kind in Britain, was completed in 1999. On match days, the Six Nations, the autumn internationals, the city fills with 70,000 rugby fans and the atmosphere is electric and the pubs run out of Brains. The stadium tour costs £14 and includes the dressing rooms, the tunnel, and the view from the stands. On non-match days the stadium sits in the city centre, a silent silver dome, waiting.
What did you find in Cardiff, the castle, the arcades, the rugby, that made you think this city is still discovering itself?
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