After an amazing day riding bikes in Killarney, on Thursday Sept 11th, we headed back by 3 hour car trip to Dublin, starting our return trip around 3pm. We made a stop along the way back at the same rest station: the Barack Obama.. for some Timmies... in Ireland (so weird!). We got to our hotel in Dublin a little later and prepared for a darn early morning where we were catching the Ferry to Wales on Friday the 12th. It was an early morning at 6am heading to the ferry port and we caught a cab. Aleksy and the cab driver were up for some conversation... too early for me, especially with no coffee...
We had a bit of time at the ferry port before boarding for our 8am departure. We had some coffee and scones while we waited then boarded a surprisingly massive, fancy ferry! It was a pretty long ride... about 5 hours until we got to Cardiff. Luckily this ferry was equipped with multiple cafeterias, a bar area, a store, and free wifi (but only in one area, which we snagged spots beside some lovely English ladies... well one lovely English lady and one crabby one).
This picture was taken on the stairwell to the outside deck! Everything was so nice on the ferry... made me really want to take a cruise vacation!
After arriving to Cardiff after a train ride from the ferry port, we set out to walk to our Guest House after stopping at the holiday in for the first time of several stops to use their washroom. It was just the most convenient place to go in between city centre and our guest house!
The next day, we set out to explore as much of Cardiff as possible after our included breakfast at the guest house (oddly at a family dinner table of 6 with some other randoms having breakfast with us).
Our first stop was the Cardiff Castle! One of the amazing castles that we paid to tour.. audio guides and all (that's whats around our necks). This is us in the centre of the castle grounds and we got to tour the part of the castle directly behind us, it was in ruins but the guide told us what used to be. The history was amazing: the different owners and how the castle changed over the years to have the remaining gothic looking structures in combination with the traditional parts (like behind us).
After touring the castle, we decided to head to the water front for a tour. This was quite a distance from where we were so we waited for the water taxi, which the man oversold tickets to (it was full), so we ended up walking the 45 minutes to the water front. This was a building at the water front: everything in Cardiff was in 2 languages: English and Welsh. This was a big difference from all the other places we visited!
I remember having an awesome afternoon having a drink with this view!! In Cardiff, we learned that a local brewery was called "Brains" brewery and we both got some Brains beers at the water front pub. Mine was strong for me but Aleksy liked his...
After our waterfront beers and getting some free water bottles (for Jesus!), we caught the water taxi back to our area (near the castle!).
There was a street market in the city centre where we grabbed some snacks to hold us over to dinner because we still wanted to tour Bute Park. We stopped int he park for a mini-picnic: some bread pudding and a Bath bun (which we probably should have waited until Bath, England to try!), and some Greggs coffee (our go-to!) then we walked along the path at the park: they had workout stations, and a waterfall along the way too.
After the aprk, we went out for supper. Our first night in Cardiff we took a really logn time to find a place, and we had the same issue this night. But we found a better place the second night, which was more of a pub atmosphere and Alekys had a burger with 3 different kinds of meat and egg. We also met some crazy people who invited us to sit with them as we were finishing our beers and we saw an impression of a dinosaur on the street: signs of a good night! These crazy people were helpful in telling us that wifi was free on the streets of Cardiff... so sweet!
We stayed at a guest house in Cardiff with a pretty small room, shared bathroom (which was really big & nice) that we luckily only shared with one guy, and we had breakfast included for both the nights we stayed! This is the Guest House we stayed at: a pretty standard historic looking building for our trip!
The next day was our last few hours in Cardiff. We had our breakfast then headed to tour the University and a museum before heading to the train station to catch our train to Bath! This day was so cold so I was very grateful to tour the inside of the museum, which was similar to the museum in London with history of the Earths evolution and other scientific exhibits.
My next post from Honeymoon times will be the last: our last days in Bath, England then returning to London!
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