Cardiff Castle

We had a day out down to Cardiff on Thursday.
We thought we'd organised it brilliantly - we looked up the bus timetables online the day before, and I've used the 60-60 bus before. We decided to go early from Hay to give ourselves enough time to return by the bus that connected with the next to last Hay bus - we've done the nail-biting last minute journey where we were still at Libanus when we should have been in the bus station and we didn't know if we'd get the connection before, and we didn't want to do it again.
All went well until we got to Brecon bus station. Seeing us looking bemused (there was no sign of the 60-60 bus) another passenger pointed us in the direction of the T4, which I'd never heard of. He was on his way to Merthyr, and recommended it - and when we looked at the timetable with another passenger it looked as if there would be plenty of time for us to get back for the last bus home....

We'd never been into Cardiff Castle, though we'd heard about the wonderful Victorian decor of the place, and I'd picked up a very old guide book.
It was well worth the £11 entry fee. We strolled around the Castle battlements (we could have picked up an audio guide, but we decided to just bimble round this time), and then dropped down a level to a long, long corridor inside the walls. Up ahead of us, we could hear a loudspeaker - and then the unmistakable sound of bombers droning overhead, and bombs falling. We had found the World War Two area, which was used as public shelters during air raids.
Outside again, we headed for the shell keep, up formidably steep stairs, and admired the defensive walls and moat and space for the portcullis at top and bottom - no-one would have stormed this before the age of cannon!
A short pause at the shed which houses the falcons (including a European Eagle Owl), and then it was into the public rooms - there's a tour of more of the castle for an extra fee. We got the impression that the architect was quite mad (Burges) but the results were wonderful! We spent ages admiring the Arab Room, and working out the Latin captions in the wall painting story of Stephen and Matilda in the Hall (it helped that we both knew the story of the Anarchy period, and who people like Robert of Gloucester were). The library is also rather wonderful, though I do feel that the Marquis of Bute was showing off a bit when it was decorated - the names of what were supposed to be his favourite authors were all around the walls, on little signs held by putti (little cherubs), and he must have been extraordinarily well read if he had managed to read all of those classical authors!
After that, we went down into the depths of the modern building near the entrance for the Firing Line, the museum of Welsh regiments, which was brilliant - and the staff were really helpful and knowledgeable. I think they were ex-Regimental themselves. Uniforms, saddles, weaponry, and a long timeline going back to the 17th century.

Just across the road from the Castle is Forbidden Planet, which is where we headed when we'd finished with History, and after browsing the SF and comics we were in need of liquid refreshment. The Goat Major was nearby, and proved to be a very fine pub, serving Brains and a guest (a Scottish beer from somewhere the bar tender wouldn't attempt to pronounce!).

There was just time for a short amble around the shopping centre, and then to the bus stop. The bus was ten minutes late. This wouldn't have mattered, but then there was an accident of some sort on the dual carriageway, which slowed all the traffic down to a crawl. After that, the driver went as fast as he could, but we were back to sweating and wondering if we'd make it to Brecon in time again.
Instead of a good half an hour to spare, we walked straight off the T4 and straight onto the 39, and set off immediately.
"Let us not go to Cardiff again," Mark said.