Day 19-22 7-11/7/19 Around Cardiff

Day 19-22 7-11/7/19 Around Cardiff

Didn’t do a lot in the last 3-4 days as Maritta was working. Dropped her of and picked her up, did some laundry, walked around the village a bit. Dropping her off wasn’t a big deal, it was only about 3 miles away and there were a couple of roads to use getting out of Whitchurch, then left onto A4054 and left onto Longwood Drive. Getting home again was a different matter. I think by the 4^th day (8 trips, probably 12 times around in a circle and two trips down the M4 by mistake) I had finally mastered it, far right lane to turn left out of Longwood Drive, right lane towards A4054, middle lane towards A4054, middle right lane towards A4054, left lane onto A4054, (that’s just the roundabout, after that it was plain sailing.

Dinner at the one of the local pubs

Chicken pie and onion rings, what could be better

Unusual Cardiff building

Decided to explore a bit further afield on Thursday, had seen an odd shaped castle in the distance when driving around the dreaded roundabout. Looked it up and found it was Castell Coch, a 13^th century castle that was refurbished and restored in the late 1800’s in the medieval style.

Squirrel almost escapes the camera near Castell Coch

Impressive buttresses to support the castle

Towers of Castell Coch

I then visited Caerphilly Castle, a ruin of a castle built in 13^th century and the largest castle in Wales.

Geese and ducks outnumber humans near Caerphilly Castle

Caerphilly Castle, note leaning tower

Interesting building in Caerphilly

Castle walls are substantial

Dragon Pen

Close up of leaning tower

Next was Tinkinswood Burial ground but I discovered the GPS was a bit rough when finding burial grounds and couldn’t find it. St Lythans Burial ground was next and although the GPS again lead me astray by about ½ a mile, I spied a sign in a hedge so managed to find this one. These are Neanderthal burial grounds from about 6,000 years ago

Neanderthal Burial Mound of St Lythans

A very nice view for a resting place

Typical Welsh road (this is a wide one, later I found one about a third this width, fortunately without trucks

On the way back I briefly visited Dyffran Gardens and Mansion.

Dyffran Mansion

Retracing my steps I found another sign in a field and found Tinkinswood Burial Ground. This is a much more complete structure. The mounds themselves are estimated to be about 12M x 30M.

Tinkinswood Mound was excavated in 1914

Tinkinswood Mound is more substantial than the St Lythans mound

In the same theme, it seemed to make sense to visit “The Cardiff Natural Burial Meadow” a sign to which I passed on the way. I discovered this was a modern “cemetery” although there aren’t any headstones, it is a large grassy paddock, the sheep still graze it and occasionally they cut it for hay.

Cardiff Natural Burial Meadow, a very peaceful place

I made a wrong turn when leaving and found myself on a road that was only just wide enough for the car, hedges almost touching both sides, fortunately I didn’t meet anyone coming the other way and after a few miles when I managed to find myself back on a slightly wider road.