Cardiff

Day trip to Cardiff today, which is in Wales, just across the bay from Bristol. Super easy! There's a cheap fast spiffy train that gets you there an hour, leaves every half hour all day. The Bristol train station is a five-minute walk from my apartment and Cardiff is a small city, highly walkable. When we arrived we hit the Cardiff Market for lunch. It's from the 1880s, just a pup in British history terms, charming steampunk vibe.

I made sure to get traditional "Welsh cakes," also called "bakestones," from the famous place in the Cardiff market, and I must say they are delicious. Kind of in between a scone and a pancake. I also got some traditional Welsh cheese, a cheddar kind of situation but creamier, very good.

Bristol also has a bunch of "arcades," nifty little covered pedestrian-only walks lined with independent shops. Very Diagon Alley vibe; we went to a dusty old bookshop.

Next,  Cardiff Castle. Here I am in front. Behind me is the "castle apartments" which are from the 1500s. 

Inside, I was especially impressed by the library. In this older world, studying with philosophers - I just wanted to find a nook and start reading.

The coolest thing was the Norman Keep, which is from 1087. I wanted to storm the keep! But there are a lot of very steep steps up to it, which makes for slow storming. I guess that's the point.

Inside the keep, there's... nothing. It's a "shell keep," an open space protected only by the walls: they would build temporary structures inside the walls. It's not a lot bigger than a basketball court. Shown below with collaborator Jer for scale.

In a separate part of the castle, under the ramparts, long spooky hallways with narrow windows.

View of the castle apartments from the top, along with some modern city features - the castle is right downtown.

Welsh language everywhere, very entertaining to imagine how to pronounce it.