The Cottage was our favourite Cardiff pub this trip.  The exterior was gorgeous although looking out through these same windows is frightful.  The crowd is the type you hope for in a pub: professional drinkers and enough oddballs to make it interesting.  The sound on the television is off and the music is unobtrusive but [...]

Nackered and in need of a rest we stumbled downhill to the Queen’s Vaults for a beverage but the interior of this beautiful if somewhat forsaken building smelt strongly of putrefied beer and was crowded and quite loud so we opted to take ours out to the side street and lean against the wall.  There [...]

We spent much of Saturday morning in Bute Park, this massive arboretum and sporting complex just north from the city centre.  As a botanical garden it is pretty good and it also has many interesting species of trees planted in hundreds of acres of groves. Later we circled the centre and visited some church sites [...]

We went for Saturday breakfast down the Prince of Wales, a Wetherspoons built into an old and very large theatre.  Artwork featuring stage actors were all around (a good one of a young Richard Burton across from our table) and private boxes were still intact in the upper levels. The Rugby World Cup is on [...]

I popped downstairs for a quick beer since Jackie didn’t want to go back out. The Goat Major was the first pub that didn’t seem to have burly security personnel at the door so it got my vote. Inside there were plush upholstered booths and friendly bartenders.  I got a Brains Dark which was a [...]

The bay area in Cardiff is like a big, modern shopping mall but some of the new architecture is interesting and began to grow on me after a couple hours hanging out.  Still, tourism is thirsty work and we decided to pop into the first proper pub we could find…this was the Packet. The Packet [...]

We arrived in Cardiff and our room wasn’t yet ready (seriously, they actually had to improve the condition of that shithole before we checked in) so we dropped our bag with reception and wandered off to sightsee and find a bite to eat.  Nothing really piqued our culinary interests so we went into the Owain [...]

There are many places that get user input and reviews for hotels and resorts (like this one). The manager of the Millenium Lodge answers many of these almost immediately usually to the effect that if a guest is dissatisfied they should call reception and the situation will be put right.  Indeed, the staff at reception [...]

Went to Northern Wales to run, as it were, in a marathon.  This didn’t go especially well and I’ll probably make some notes and post some fotos tonite.  There were also a number of pub visits (three during the marathon itself), to post and some touristy things.  In the meantime, here’s some photos lifted from [...]