Day 4 Continued, Cardiff Castle

This is a cut and paste of the itinerary:  Our Itinerary reads: Explore Bath, a city of elegant Georgian buildings in a distinctive golden stone.  Tour the wonderfully preserved Roman Baths.  Head to Cardiff, where you'll take a sightseeing tour of the city before touring Cardiff Castle, a medieval castle fabulously renovated in Victorian Gothic style.  Dine in your hotel this evening.  So, we are inside Cardiff Castle.

The ceilings were gorgeous.

One of the walls in the nursery.

Cardiff Castle is one of Wales leading heritage attractions.  From the Roman occupation, to the Norman Conquest, through Civil War, The Victorian transformation and the terrors of WWII, there are 2,000 years of history in the castle right in the heart of the city.

Picture after picture.  There's so much to see on every wall, on every ceiling you hardly can take it all in.

Murals and symbols throughout the castle.

Even the rooftop area was gorgeous.

The Bute family left their mark transforming the house into the opulent Victorian Gothic Home it is today.

After departing Cardiff Castle, we headed Mercure Hotel, were we lodged just for 1 night.

Once again we were super rushed to check in, get out luggage and change for dinner, so no time to take our own pictures of the hotel, so these are from the hotel's webpage.

In the morning we'll head north from Cardiff.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Day 4 of Fourteen, Touring The UK,( Bath, Cardiff)

Moving Day, so bags out at 7, breakfast at 7 and be on the coach at 8.  We head northeast from Tavistock.

Our Itinerary reads: Explore Bath, a city of elegant Georgian buildings in a distinctive golden stone.  Tour the wonderfully preserved Roman Baths.  Head to Cardiff, where you'll take a sightseeing tour of the city before touring Cardiff Castle, a medieval castle fabulously renovated in Victorian Gothis style.  Dine in your hotel this evening.

Beautiful buildings like this everywhere with gorgeous flower boxes and or planters in front.  These two ladies (cousins), were part of our group.  Their luggage didn't make it to London, so they did lots of scrambling until their luggage was found and caught up with them.

The buildings were golden.

We noted beautiful walkways, as we took a walking tour in Bath.

Sally Lunn's, the oldest house in Bath, built 1482.  Sally lived there in 1680.  It's a Tea and Eating House.

We're about to enter the Roman Baths.  Gorgeous, look at the size and details of the structure.

You walk above the level of the baths and get a great view of the baths and some of the city.  You walk on the same level as the baths and stop at various listening stations to learn more by using your voice box as part of your entrance fee.

You continue walking below the level of the baths where lots of artifacts are stored.  Much has been excavated and studied.  They've even found mounds of money.  It's dark on this lower level so pictures are a bit of a challenge.  AND, it's rather crowded as people continue to listen and stop at various stations.  You could spend hours if you stopped at every station and listened to the entire recording.  We were a bit hemmed in by our time table to grab lunch if wanted and be back at the coach at the appointed time, so we cut this area a bit short and headed to the gift shop.

We headed to Cardiff, the capital of Wales for a walking tour of the city.  This is Aneurin Bevan 1897-1960.  He's Welsh, and was The Minister of Health.  He spearheaded the British National Health Service.  During World War II, a need to care for lots of injured and sick people had to be set up.  Thus this monument to him.

Making our way through the city to Cardiff Castle.  This is the walled area.

Inside the walled area, the beautiful clock tower in the distance.

The Keep way up on a hill.  A fortification built on top a Roman ruin.

Some of stone wall with the Dragon, the symbol of Wales.

Lots of history here, Romans, Normans, William The Conqueror, and even World War II are part of the history.  The tunnels under the castle were used as air raid shelters capable of housing 1800 people.  A system of ramps were used in order for people to get safely inside these thick walls when the air raid sirens went off.  It's fairly dark inside the tunnel, but you can benches, and bunkbeds.

A soup kitchen

The tunnel got lighter as we got closer to the end.  It was rather eerie in the tunnel.  You hear a siren and a radio announcement talking about the war, sometimes it gives details of a battle.  Gave me chills head to toe.  

There are 17 pictures here and we're not inside the castle yet; so I'll stop at this point here and do part II for the inside of the castle.  It's really something.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.