Welsh Dragon in steel.
Cardiff Castle main entrance.
Despite more heavy rain overnight the weather cleared up this morning to enable us to walk the half a mile or so to the bus stop to catch a bus to Cardiff. We have been here before but only briefly. Once we arrived in the city some recognition of familiar sight’s came back to us despite obvious modernisation. What to do was the next question which was a toss up between the open top bus tour or the castle. Well the castle won.This turned out to be a wise decision as we had quite a few heavy downpours during the day and we were able to take shelter some where around the castle each time.
The castle was nothing but rubble until contractors found part of the old Roman walls in the 19th Century. Lord Bute, a wealthy land owner around Cardiff then organised the castle to be rebuilt. The Roman walls were marked out in a line a of red bricks and the rest was built on top. During the last World War the castle tunnels within the walls were used as air raid shelters for about 2000 people.
There are 7 apartments within the clock tower once the quarters of the domestic staff. There are seven figures representing sign's of the Zodiac.
Back in the city we found the covered market which has been in existence since the 1700’s. The present building was built in 1891 and opened with much pomp and ceremony which was again repeated when the building became a centenarian. Again we were lucky because while we were in the market there was two more heavy downpours.
The rebuilt northern tower in Cardiff Castle.
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