Wales Diary, the Covered Streets of Cardiff

Morgan Arcade

My third day in Cardiff was again glowering and rainy, but I had the absolute best of indoor plans.  I was going to spend the day at the National Museum Cardiff.  Just for starters, thanks to the Davies sisters, the National Museum has one of the largest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art outside of Paris.  Some say the largest, but I’m from Chicago, so you won’t hear that from me (read:  Art Institute).

And that’s not all.  The museum “houses Wales’s national archaeology, art, geology and natural history collections,” not to mention temporary exhibitions of all stripes.  I also know from long experience that you can pretty much count on UK museums to have decent lunch spots, so no need to go hunting around the streets for one in the rain.  Best of all?  Admission to all national museums in the UK is free.

Having learned my lesson from the castle hours snafu, I looked up the Museum’s hours in a guidebook.  Open.  But I didn’t rest on that; I checked the internet, too.  Good thing:  a one-day work stoppage was in progress that very day.

St David's Dewi Sant

So now what?  I’d already “done” Cardiff Castle.  And I certainly was not about to go anywhere near that huge mall they’d plopped in the center of Cardiff.  I can do the mall thing back home all up and down Route 9.

Back to the guide book.  Not a good day for a stroll through Bute Park and along the River Taff, but the guide book did also mention four Edwardian and Victorian arcades, including “the glorious Morgan Arcade with original 1896 detailing and Venetian windows.”  Alas, again for shoppers, a species to which I don’t belong.

Well, I had stumbled on an arcade on the way back from the castle.  It at least looked appealing.  More to the point, the walkways were covered, so protected from the rain.  Maybe, if I added in a look at the Cardiff Market (also covered) . . . and there had to be a bookstore somewhere, if I ran out of things to do.

OK, so the thing is, I may not be a shopper-shopper, but a window shopper?  Now that’s another matter.

The Plan

I was even able to stop for an excellent lunchtime curry right in the middle of the Morgan Arcade.

Pastries, Cardiff Market

In the end, I hardly got a glimpse of the Cardiff Market.

Yeates Fruit & Veg, Cardiff Market

Black Pudding, Cardiff Market

Bear Island Book Exchange, Cardiff Market

I only passed by the Market's book exchange.








I never got to a bookstore at all.

Morgan Arcade

Listening List

For a Spotify Playlist of the music of John Metcalf, click on Wales Diary. Metcalf is the Artistic Director of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music, which occasioned my visit to Cardiff.

The Two Sisters from John Metcalf's Harp Scrapbook


© John Metcalf.

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This is the third in a five-part series entitled Wales Diary.  The first two parts can be found at these links:  Cardiff Bay Barrage here, and Cardiff Castle here; the fourth and fifth parts can be found at these links: Art and the Aquabus here and From Celtic Village to Castle Gardens here.

A three-part series of posts on the Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music concerts I attended while in Wales, including listening lists, can be found at these links: Crossing a Bridge of Dreams here, Ancient Instruments, Timeless Sounds here, and Worlds Entwined here.