Cardiff - Day One

I warned you, didn't I? Here we go.
Listen to a tale of sorrow, love, emotion, pain, wind and seagulls - lots of seagulls.
Did that get your attention? Let's start then.

Tuesday morning we left for the airport, early enough to be relaxed and in a good mood. That changed a little when we waited in the Cityhopper for late passengers. Late, late, late passengers. When they finally arrived, they brought their whole household with them. Of course they did, it had been too late to check in the luggage. The flight attendant was not amused, you could tell by his face.
Since we didn't have that big a time window between flights, our faces took on a slightly worried look, but although we almost hadn't hoped for it anymore, we did take off eventually.
Schiphol Airport at Amsterdam saw us running from one gate to the other. Except for the embarrassing moment in the scanner when they had to call me out because I got lost in reading the explanation on the wall.

And then we landed in Cardiff. I swear this is the cutest little airport I have ever seen. Although I have no orientation whatsoever - I need a GPS to guide me from the bedroom to the living room - not even I could get lost here. Amazing!
A cab took us to our hotel, The St. David's Hotel and Spa. We received a fair warning by the driver not to say that we were in England. We were in Wales now! ;-)
The last two years we had had hotel rooms in the Victorian and Edwardian style, but this year we stood in front of a top modern looking hotel with a hole in the middle, so-to-speak. From the hall you could see all the way up and the rooms were built around this space.
This is a view through the window in the hall standing on the third floor.


The room itself was not exciting. Maybe I'm too much of a romantic, but it looked a little cold to me, not special at all. Nice was the floor to ceiling window, so you could see the bay when lying in bed. And the view from the little balcony was even better.

This is Cardiff Bay to the left, the middle and the right.

To the left you can see the barrage whose introduction turned the bay into a freshwater lake.


The buildings in the middle fascinated me. Not so much the church on top, but the long one you can see on the left side of the picture, so we decided to go there one day.



To the right you see part of the Wetlands Reserve.


It was a little too early however to just stand on the balcony and look around, so we went over to Mermaid Quay on the other side of the hotel. Funny enough I have taken no picture of it and I can't even tell you the reason. The only pictures I've got is of the Pierhead Building which hosts the Visitor and Education Centre for the National Assembly of Wales.
As you can see, I was particularly fond of the demonic looking creatures guarding the building from the top.


Due to a back problem we knew the days would be shorter than expected, so after a little stroll we had some delicious Indian food and then soon headed back to the hotel to make plans for Day Two.