An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
After our visit to Cardiff Castle, we followed along the Animal Wall until we reached the entrance to Bute Park. I specifically wanted to visit this park, because I’d been staring at it on Google Maps for many months while writing a novel in which my protagonist was chased through the park and entered Cardiff Castle through a little-known side...
Cardiff Castle stands in the middle of a busy thoroughfare, incongruously medieval in the midst of a modern city. It’s home to a sumptuous Victorian palace and an iconic clock tower, but since we didn’t think our little 7-year-old would enjoy an hour-long guided tour, we opted to explore its other sights on our own instead. It was a drizzly...
“I want to see a stegosaurus!” Aidan shouted, excited, as we hurried up the steps to the Cardiff National Museum. Uh oh, I thought to myself. Having spent two years’ worth of lunch times inside the museum, I knew there were dinosaurs, but I didn’t recall ever seeing a stegosaurus. Nevertheless, we set out eagerly in search of the remains...
“Dragon!” I stagger as Aidan runs into me, clinging on for dear life. “Where?” I ask, smiling at the surprise in his eyes as he realises I’m excited instead of afraid. “In the pit, over there.” He leads me to it, just past the moat surrounding Caerphilly Castle and beside a ‘ye olde’ signpost proclaiming the trench to be a...
The last time I wrote about our UK 2023 trip, I was in the midst of sorting out all the admin that goes along with organising an overseas vacation, while also panicking about the inclement weather and wondering whether we’d encounter an unseasonal bout of snow in the middle of spring in Wales. I can now safely say that everyone’s...
We spent Christmas 2012 in Caerphilly, visiting Gareth’s family who we only get to see once every two years or so. Gareth’s brother wanted some male bonding time and, having just recovered from a nearly debilitating flu picked up in a Finnish sauna, I decided to spend the day on my own wandering the streets of Cardiff. I love Cardiff....
According to the clever guys at NASA, we are currently experiencing a peak in an 11-year sunspot cycle, which among other things will bring more auroras than has been seen in a long time. Apparently this Solar Max is due in the 2012/2013 northern hemisphere winter period. And so… Gareth and I are heading over to the Arctic Circle to...
“To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but, with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.” ~ Brian Harris, Welsh football player. The sky fades from a blustery blue to charcoal grey as the bus crosses the Severn bridge and a spray-painted sign proudly announces “Croeso Cymru”...
