More Cardiff

We'd intended to bike on our last day in Cardiff, but a combination of drizzle and sore legs made it not such a good idea. So we had a day of leisure, just hanging around.

We took a boat down to Cardiff Bay, which was a pretty nice but not exceptionally nice thing to do. We sat on a balcony overlooking the water and had some Brain's beer. The sun came out, but did not shine on us because we were on the wrong side of the building. Still, it was nice.

Back in town, we had a light supper in a new microbrewery called ZeroDegrees (new to Cardiff — they have other locations). The microbrewery seemed to be modelled on US microbreweries, esp. west coast (Portland, etc.). Eric had a Pale Ale (described as an American version of an English bitter) and I had a wheat beer. To eat, we shared a seared carpaccio and a goat cheese pizza, and had salads. It was all very nice.

Labels: journal, united kingdom, wales

posted by Tony at 11:11 PM | 0 comments

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 | 0 comments

Bristol

We arrived safely in London this morning... we scored upgrades to business class, which made an enormous difference in how much and how well we slept, and therefore how jetlagged we are now. So that was very nice.

On arrival we took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, where we were to catch our train to Bristol. Everything went so much more smoothly than we'd feared (Heathrow can be a mess), and we ended up with over an hour to kill at Paddington. Fortunately it was lunch time.

We went to a Fuller's Pub in the station, where we each had a pint (ESB for Eric, and a blonde called "Discovery" for me) and a sandwich (we shared two: cheddar with chutney, and sausage with pickled cabbage). It was all quite good. I confess I've been afraid of English food — people complain about it so much — but this was just good, basic pub food.

We got on the train for Bristol, and rolled all the way across southern England. From what I saw, the countryside was beautiful, but we were both asleep most of the time. (One reason we decided to go directly to Bristol after London was so we'd have a train trip where we could sleep.)

Bristol is a nice town. It has a good vibe. I like visiting cities that feel like people live there. Bristol is not touristy, but there are people everywhere. Much of it is new, since a lot was flattened in the war, but the new architecture is pretty nice, and there's enough old architecture to maintain interest.

It's also quite hilly. One of the things we did was to climb up to Cabot's Tower, which is in a park atop the tallest hill, overlooking all of Bristol. When we got to the top I couldn't believe we'd climbed so far up — it hadn't seemed like that much. The tower itself was closed for renovations, but you can see plenty from the park.

For dinner we went to the Hole in the Wall, which is a pub off Queen's Square, in the old city and near the harbor and which is reputed to be the model for the "Spyglass Inn" (or something?) in Robert Louis Stevenson' Treasure Island. That's not why we went, though; we went because I'd heard the food was good. It's a creative take on traditional pub food. The inside is homey — mismatched furniture, etc. The food was good. We started with a chicken liver patê served with toast and rowanberry and apple jelly, which was very good. Then I had a pork, apple, and wild boar sausage with caramelized onion mashed potatoes (basically a fancy bangers-and-mash), and Eric had the pot pie of the day, which was beef and vegetable. These weren't as good as the appetizer, but they were still good. The beer selection was not as good a this place — mostly mass-market beers. I had a Stella Artois and Eric had a bitter called something like Timothy Thompson's.

Now we are back in our hotel, and ready for bed.

Incidentally, I don't expect to post every day like this. We didn't bring the laptop. However, this hotel, surprisingly, comes with a computer in the room (The City Inn Bristol — nice place!), and so I'm taking advantage of it.

Tomorrow: Cardiff!

Labels: england, journal, united kingdom

posted by Tony at 9:50 PM | 0 comments