Cardiff

We've been enjoying Cardiff despite the rain. Apparently it rains all the time here. The plants are lush, of course. Throught the city there are arcades, which are covered shopping streets (some narrow and Victorian, some just like big malls). Typically they are covered with glass peaked roofs, so the sunlight comes in, and the are quite nice... but they do tend to imply that there's a lot of rain.

Yesterday we went up to Caerphilly Castle, which is a massive medieval castle, one of the largest in the UK. It was truly impressive. (Unfortunately, the weather was terrible — light rain with high winds. The fact that we were out in this weather and not inside somewhere made us laugh.) We didn't buy any caerphilly cheese while there.

Then we went down to Penarth, a Victorian resort town south of Cardiff, on the water. There's a pier just like the piers you see in British movies when the people go to the seaside. We had lunch there, looking at the water, and then returned to Cadiff to dry off.

For dinner we went to Cardiff Bay, which is the area just south of Cardiff, on a sort of artificial bay at the mouth of the Taff river. We ate at Gilby's @ the Bay, which seemed like it would be a good place. The food was quite good. I had a galantine of guinea fowl and foie gras with ginger sauce, followed by a fillet of Welsh beef with Welsh rarebit on top, served with a potato thing. Eric had a carpaccio of Welsh beef, and then a chicken dish with a risotto. Note for the future: order beef "rare" if you do not want it well done. We shared a dessert, described as a timbale but basically jello, flavored with Pimm's, with berries in it and sort of a passion fruit puree. That was particularly delicious. (Pimm's is a gin-based drink, usually served with ginger ale and fruit.)

The weather is supposed to be halfway decent today, warm even (though not so far), and we are thinking about renting bikes. Though it will probably rain at some point. I've been checking weather reports, and they basically change constantly — it's worse than Chicago.

Labels: journal, united kingdom, wales

posted by Tony at 5:56 AM