Cardiff is not somewhere I would necessarily visit again. Honestly, there was nothing wrong with it at all, there are just much nicer places in Wales to spend your time. We stayed in Cardiff as a pit stop on our drive back to London and spent a half day and a night exploring. The big sites can easily be done in this time frame and we did enjoy our stroll around the city. First stop was Bute Park where a summer picnic would be downright idyllic. It really is a lovely and relaxing place right in the city centre.

Right near Bute Park is the famous Cardiff Castle, in fact, my favourite part of visiting the castle was the walkway to get to it. You may be thinking, what on earth would be so great about a walkway?? Well, along Castle Street is the Animal Wall which is a stone wall with a series of sculptures of animals every couple of meters. It really was lovely. Once you’ve gazed at the Pelican, Racoon and even the Hyena, you can walk through the gate to see the castle. Getting through the gate is free, but if you want an in depth look at the castle you will have to buy a ticket. We felt we could see enough in the inner courtyard so didn’t bother.

We then walked down to the marina at Cardiff Bay for a ramble along the water. There are some impressive buildings in this area, such as the Millennium Centre and Parliament. It is pretty nice to walk along the water and if we had more time we would have headed out on a boat for a look around the bay.

The thing that Cardiff is most known for (well the thing we hear the most from our friends) is that it has a fantastic nightlife, especially after a sports game at the Principality Stadium in the centre of town. The High Street is a fantastic place to go out, drink and people watch, with countless bars scattered around. We also discovered that Cardiff does fantastic Indian food, we had a amazing meal at a place called Maya. So if you’re boozed and hungry, this is ideal!

Overall Cardiff was fine. Definitely try to go there for a sports game and enjoy the nightlife and hungover strolling through Bute Park and Cardiff Castle. The accommodation is really cheap on AirBnB and everything is walkable.

Here is a breakdown of our costs for 2 people over 1 night/1 day:
Accommodation – £35 (NZ$68)
Food/Drink – £62 (NZ$121)
Petrol – £12 (NZ$23.50)
Misc. (e.g. Parking/Uber) – £5 (NZ$9.50)
Total spent – £114 (NZ$222)