Wales
 

I am looking for suggestions for day trips from Cardiff. We will be there 3 days in early September. Any suggestions on hotel in Cardiff. Will take the train from Heathrow.

What kind of hotel and what price range? After much deliberation we stayed at the St. David's Hotel right on the bay. It was a beautiful place and there was a wonderful staff. We arrived from just having totalled our rental car and still quite shook up. We stayed for three nights and the whole staff knew the story and couldn't have been nicer to us.
We got a surprisingly good rate by booking direct months ahead -- I see you could still do that. We also had an amazing dinner there one night.

We had mainly been concerned that it was too far"away" from the center, but it is a beautiful spot. We often walked from there to the downtown, but there is also a little shuttle bus.

Thanks for the hotel suggestion. We will book an upscale hotel for 3 nights. Did you do any day tour trips? We arrive on Aug 31 and will spend that day in Cardiff. Would like to do a day trip Friday and Saturday then return to London on Sunday afternoon.

The St. Fagin's, the Museum of Welsh Folk Life, is just outside Cardiff.

Caerphilly Castle -- one of the best in Wales -- can easily be reached by bus from the city.

Either is worth a day.

Cardiff Castle -- in the heart of the city -- is also a great place to explore. Take a picnic but watch out for the peacocks. They love to steal sandwiches.

Definitely Chepstow Castle/Tintern Abbey.

&quot;<i>Will take the train from Heathrow.</i>&quot; I suppose you do know there aren't any trains from Heathrow. You will either have to take a bus to Reading and catch a train from there, or take the train in to London and then take another train from there.

Actually I didn't know that there wasn't a train form Heathrow. I printed out a National Rail Map it shows a stop. Looking at the map I do see Reading. Perhaps the underground takes you to Reading.

This is begining to sound like a troll posting. If not, my apologies and suggest you do a little more searching.

I did get details on train. From terminal 3 you take a bus to Reading. I am not adverse to take a train to Swansea, Carmarthen or on to Fishguard. We can easily do a day trip outside Cardiff. Any suggestions?

&quot;<i>Perhaps the underground takes you to Reading.</i>&quot; -- Uh - no.

The tube is in London - Reading is not anywhere near London.

I wonder why they would sell you a ticket to take the bus from Heathrow Terminal 3 to Reading station and then take Western train to Cardiff.

I have frequently bought train tickets at Heathrow which include the rail-air coach link to Woking then the train to wherever. So I assume it's a similar deal via Reading.

Trains to Fishguard (and Pembrokeshire generally) are few &amp; far between, very slow &amp; involve changing in Swansea - I wouldn't recommend it for a day trip. (My in-laws live there, unfortunately.)

How about visiting the Big Pit up in the valleys ? Former coal mine, with tours guided by former miners, won the Gulbenkian Museum of the Year a couple of years back, part of a World Heritage Site - see http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/bigpit/. I see buses run there from Newport, so you could take the short train ride from Cardiff to Newport then get the bus.

See side entries on the same website for the St Fagan's Museum of Welsh Life as recommended above - I haven't been yet but it is supposed to be vg - and the new National Waterfront Museum at Swansea which has been longlisted for this year's Gulbenkian Prize.

If you can afford it, the St David's Hotel is lovely, &amp; has a great spa.

In Cardiff, I highly recommend the tours of the Wales Millennium Centre (especially) and the new Assembly building. Both need pre-booking, well in advance in the case of the WMC. You might also like to check the WMC website to see if there is anything good on during your stay - we are going to see 'Tristan &amp; Isolde' there but in late September.

As well as ardiff Castle, you can also visit Castell Coch, a very pretty small castle on the outskirts of Cardiff.

The Museum of Welsh Life in Cardiff is great. Outdoors type of place.

I loved the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Also Chepstow and the castle and, above all, get to Tintern Abbey. It is historical and the ruins are worth seeing.

There is the Heathrow express that takes you to paddington check this site out
www.heathrowairport.com
St. Davids is a 5 star hotel in Cardiff bay. if you are looking to go out on trips while in cardiff I would stay in the center so you can wALK to the central train station or main bus station. If you look at another thread called cardiff lodgings you find more advice on that side of things. Now as for day trips there are plenty you can do it depends on what you want to see and do. Trains and buses go quite frequently and then there our coach tour companies, but if you are staying in the center there is so much to do and see I would think if you have have 3 days then you don really ahve enough time to fit in too many trips outside of Cardiff.
Suggestion for one day a morning in Cardiff castle. The hop on to the hop on and off tour bus that you can get on outside the castle. do the full tour first. Then stay on to the bay. Get off at the at mermaid quay. Grab some luunch in one of the pubs or the cafe in the arts center itself. Take a tour of the new millennium arts center.
http://www.wmc.org.uk/
Walk around the waterfront see the new welsh assemble building the Norewigen Church and then walk back to the Roald Dahl plassa . then take a boat trip grom Mermaid Quay to the Barriage the ride is 30 mins each way you do not need to sepend ages on the barrigae but if the day is nice is is a nice wlak around. Then when you get back off the boat from the barriage go for an nice evening meal in one of the many waterside resturants. The harbour website will ahve all the details of the many pubs, restutrants and attractions in the bay.
To get back in to the center a taxi will coast about &pound;5. you can get one from Mermaid quay.

http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/content.asp?id=694
http://www.affiliate.viator.com/broc...&amp;AUID=4048
http://www.cardiffharbour.com/
http://www.visitwales.com/

I forgot,to add Cardiff Sandringham Hotel is a very good place to stay in the heart of the center.

Have only just seen this post. From Heathrow you get a train to Hayes and Harlington and then change for Reading . There you pick up the train from Paddington to South Wales.Look on the trainline.com