Unexpected Delights

Considering I hadn't intended being in Cardiff today, I think I made a pretty good time of it.

As I mentioned in this morning's post, I've had to book another night here so I can actually manage to get to North Wales at a reasonable hour of the day. The downside has been trying to fill another day of sightseeing in a city where, let's face it, there's not a whole lot to see.

At the bar here at the hostel they have a little book full of useful information, most importantly it includes a list of sights to see while you're here. One of them I noticed a couple of days ago, but I wasn't sure I should see it until the girl behind the bar convinced me it was worth going.

The place is called St Fagan's, and it's a living Welsh museum - by this, they mean you can wander around a real preserved Welsh village and take a look inside the buildings, and even watch people recreate how things were done back in the day - such as boot making, baking bread, that sort of thing.

For some reason I wasn't expecting a lot, but it was a big surprise - it was a lot bigger than I was expecting, there was a lot to see (not a great deal to do beyond walking around, though) and it was actually quite interesting. It sure beat the pants off the museum I saw yesterday.

I spent several hours wandering the paths, taking loads of pictures (yes, I'm one of those tourists) and generally soaking in the atmosphere. There was also another castle on the property which boasted a spectacular garden, one of the best I've seen so far.

But the best bit came after talking to one of the fellows watching over the place: it turns out the Doctor Who film crew had just been there a couple of months earlier! He said they were there some time in December, which means it was for the soon-to-be-aired third series - which means I've managed to do a pre-emptive location visit! I certainly had a spring in my step after learning this nugget of information.

Departing at closing time, I headed back to the hostel for a drink and a snack. I haven't mentioned this already, but daylight savings clicked in over here last night, so once again my body clock is a bit haywire. It also threw my evening off a little as I was planning to head back to Cardiff Bay to take some night-time pictures of the area, but it was still broad daylight - and chilly as hell. In the end I went during the light.

As I'd hoped, it was starting to turn dark by the time I arrived and I proceeded to fill up the rest of my second 2GB memory card, as well as part of my third. By no means do I consider myself a competent photographer - especially with the cheap little camera I'm using - but I'm very proud of some of the photos I've been taking, and I'm especially pleased with some I took tonight.

Almost all of today, the weather has ben quite rubbish - overcast and threatening to rain - but as I arrived at the Bay the clouds decided to part for a while and I was given some nice blue skies to photograph, which slowly turned into a wonderful night's sky.

Tomorrow I'm catching some buses up North. It should be a terminally boring day, but the days following should hopefully make up for it.