Cardiff

Castle keep to Mermaid Quay in two unhurried days

Two days cover Cardiff. Day one takes in Cardiff Castle and its Bute apartments, Bute Park, City Hall and National Museum Cardiff, then the Victorian arcades and Cardiff Market. Day two rides the Aquabus to Mermaid Quay for the Senedd, the Wales Millennium Centre and the Norwegian Church, with Penarth or St Fagans in the afternoon.

Day one, morning. Start at Cardiff Castle when it opens: climb the Norman keep, see the Roman wall and book a guided tour of the Bute apartments. Walk north through Bute Park along the Taff.

Afternoon. Cut across to Cathays Park for City Hall and National Museum Cardiff, where the Impressionist rooms alone justify an hour or two. Return to the centre through the Victorian arcades, Castle Arcade, Morgan Arcade and Royal Arcade, and the indoor Cardiff Market.

Evening. Dinner in the centre or in Pontcanna, then a pint of locally brewed Brains if a match is on.

Day two, morning. Ride the Aquabus downriver to Mermaid Quay. Look in at the Senedd, the Wales Millennium Centre and the Norwegian Church, where Roald Dahl was baptised.

Afternoon. Walk across the barrage to Penarth for its Victorian pier, or take the bus out to St Fagans for its open-air village. End with a show at the Millennium Centre or a waterfront meal back in the Bay.

Travelling on to England's cities? The train reaches Bath in about an hour and London in around two.

Welsh cakes, cawl and the Victorian market hall

Start eating in Cardiff at Cardiff Market, the glass-roofed Victorian hall between St Mary Street and Trinity Street, for warm Welsh cakes, cockles and laverbread. Cawl, a lamb and leek broth, appears on pub menus in the colder months. City Road in Roath, Canton and Pontcanna hold the most varied independent restaurants.

Cardiff Market, a glass-roofed Victorian hall between St Mary Street and Trinity Street, is the place to start. Stalls sell Welsh cakes, flat currant griddle cakes dusted with sugar and eaten warm, plus cockles and laverbread, a dark purée of seaweed traditionally fried with bacon for breakfast.

Cawl, a slow broth of lamb, leeks and root vegetables, turns up on pub menus in the colder months, often with Caerphilly cheese and bread on the side. Welsh rarebit, cheese sauce grilled on toast, is the classic café lunch.

For variety, follow the neighbourhoods. City Road in Roath is lined with Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian restaurants. Canton and Pontcanna have independent cafés and small dining rooms along Cowbridge Road East and Kings Road. The arcades hide old coffee shops and delis. Mermaid Quay in the Bay is mostly chain restaurants, so look a street back for anything more personal.

To drink, Brains is the Cardiff name you will see on the pumps of older pubs, with a fast-growing craft beer scene around the centre.

Winter Wonderland lights, Six Nations crowds and valley castles

Cardiff is liveliest in winter: Winter Wonderland runs beside City Hall from November into early January, and Six Nations home games fill the city in February and March. Summer is calmer, with highs of 17C to 22C and the least rain. Castell Coch, Caerphilly Castle and Barry Island make easy short trips.

Winter is lively here. Cardiff's Winter Wonderland sets up an ice rink, rides and festive stalls in the civic centre beside City Hall from November into early January. The Six Nations rugby championship follows in February and March, when home games at the Principality Stadium make the centre one big crowd.

The weather explains why summer is calmer and more comfortable. Highs climb from 17C in May to 22C in July, lows sit at 9 to 13C, and rainfall is at its lowest, around 72 to 84 mm a month. October to December is the wettest stretch, at 129 to 140 mm, with highs of 9 to 15C.

Short trips are simple. Castell Coch, a Victorian fairy-tale castle built for the same Marquess of Bute, sits in beech woods just north of the city. Caerphilly Castle, one of the largest in Britain, is a short train ride up the valley line from Queen Street. Barry Island has a sandy beach and funfair, and in summer paddle steamers leave Penarth pier for cruises along the Bristol Channel. The Brecon Beacons are around 40 minutes' drive north.

Roman walls, Burges interiors and St Fagans

Cardiff's biggest sights are its castle, its rugby stadium and the open-air museum at St Fagans. The castle stands on a Roman fort of the mid-3rd century, the Principality Stadium opened beside the Taff in 1999, and St Fagans has gathered more than forty historic buildings from across Wales since 1948.

Inside the castle walls, the Normans raised a wooden keep on a mound about 40 feet high in the late 11th century. From 1868 William Burges remodelled the apartments for the 3rd Marquess of Bute in a lavish Gothic revival style, and the Bute family gave the castle and park to the city in 1947. Tunnels in the walls sheltered up to 1,800 people during Second World War air raids.

The Principality Stadium on Westgate Street holds 73,931 and has a fully retractable roof, so matches and concerts go ahead in any weather. Its city-centre site is why match days take over the streets around it.

St Fagans opened in July 1948 as the Welsh Folk Museum. Its 100-acre site holds farmhouses, chapels and workshops moved from all over Wales and rebuilt, so allow at least half a day.