Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
festival
CARDIFF
The
National St. David's Day Parade
(www.stdavidsday.org) is a March cele-
bration of the national Welsh day fea-
turing bands, choirs, and musical
groups in national or historical dress as
well as dance troupes and medieval re-
enactments. The parade is in the after-
noon, with a finale at the National
Museum, but there are other events late
into the evening. Cardiff Bay is host to
many free festivals throughout the year
(www.cardiff-festival.com) from
Cardiff
International Food & Drink Festival,
which snakes around the waterfront
featuring the best of Welsh creations
plus produce from the rest of the world,
to
WOW on the Waterfront,
a celebra-
tion of dance and music (both in July).
The
Harbour Festival
(Aug bank holi-
day) is one of the most popular, a
weekend of family fun, food, and music
along a nautical theme, with water-
based activities and visits to tall ships
at anchor.
18
full-fledged family attraction, with an “Evolution of Wales” section that takes you
from the Big Bang to dinosaur skeletons, an animatronic woolly mammoth, the
hands-on Clore Discovery Centre, and much more in galleries that have all been
recently revamped.
Cathays Park, in the Civic Centre.
&
029/2039-7951.
www.museumwales.ac.uk. Free admission
except for special exhibitions (prices vary). Tues-Sun 10am-5pm, plus bank holidays. Bus: 32 or 62.
Exploring Cardiff Bay
In 1999, the Barrage was built (basically a massive sea wall) across the bay, creating
a vast freshwater lake accessible to vessels only via a lock. It is a mecca for sailing and
other watersports, its shores full of attractions.
Cardiff Bay
, the redeveloped
area of the old dockland of Tiger Bay, is about 1
1
⁄
2
miles from town.
Cardiff Bay
Visitor Centre,
the Tube, Harbour Drive (
&
029/2046-3833;
www.visitcardiff.
com), open 10am to 6pm, is an attraction in itself. It looks like a beached submarine
and has films, exhibitions, a scale model of the city, as well as lots of free information.
The
Waterbus
(
&
07940/142409;
www.cardiffcats.com) costs £3 one-way, £5
round-trip (children half-price) and leaves the city's Taff Mead Embankment every
few minutes. It stops at Mermaid Quay for the Bay attractions, and at the Barrage for
a walk to the beach resort of Penarth on its 30-minute tour. The Barrage (www.cardiff
harbour.com) is open daily (free admission), for windy strolls and bicycle rides from
the Bay attractions all the way to Penarth. There's even a windswept cafe.
Millennium Centre
ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX The building that's the
face of Cardiff Bay is an iconic arts hall with giant lines of poetry cut into its copper
roof. The auditorium, like some jagged red-rock canyon from the American West, is
even more stunning. Welsh stone, wood, metal, and glass have been used in construc-
tion, and Welsh artists have produced internal fixtures, fittings, and public art.
There's often a free lunchtime concert in the lobby, which you can watch from the
trendy cafe-bars, and a tour gets you among the giant sets, racks of costumes, and
dressing rooms. See “Nightlife & Entertainment,” below, for information on the per-
forming arts here.
Bute Place.
&
08700/402000.
www.wmc.org.uk. Free admission to lobby; backstage tours £5.50
adults, £4.50 children 5-15. Daily from 10am. Bus: 6 Baycar, 7, 8, or 35.
