Friday, June 30, 2023

30 June 2023 Cardiff: A Fine Museum and Some Wandering

 


Cardiff is a many layered city.  The street art is quirky, the names of the shops are pun laden, there is public art everywhere and many off the wall retailers.  We started the day in the downstairs breakfast area enjoying the full English breakfast.  I skipped the baked beans but the rest was very tasty.  We then went to the National Museum which had a bit of everything.  From Monet paintings to Rodin sculptures, to walls and walls of porcelain to taxidermy to fossils to meteorites to delicately carved jade.  We started at the top and worked our way down.  So much to see and such a variety as well.  We stopped back at the hotel for a left overs lunch.  We then wandered about a bit more.  I got my phone screen replaced and Leslie finally found a tub of jewelry cleaner.  I did find some stickers but nothing for Brains Beers.  Oh well.  It had been raining / misty all day and towards the afternoon the wind picked up.  So we picked up some gyros for dinner and prepared to hit the road again in the morning.  


At least this bird will not be leaving a mark


Porcelain lady in an oyster shell


The building was large and had multiple domes





Dozens of shades of white on these mugs


Renoir's Lady in Blue


The classic Rodin handiwork on these hands


Monet and his wife took to the canals of Venice every night that they were there


This was a vibrant sunset in Venice


Jade Oxen


A sea creature, a merman?


I spotted this large brown wading bird in a painting of exotic birds.  I think it may be a bittern


And we see what has become of the bittern


To the left of the peacock is a vertical line in the painting.  The painting was cut and it covered a secret door behind it.  These are the things you find out when you talk to the guards in the museum


Fish dish


The last Bard of Wales was hunted down by the English


The tree is made from the paper excised from the book it is growing out of


We could not find the explanation of these thousand cardboard bird houses


A travel set of cutlery


The main dome


A very large canvas celebrating the one million horses and mules used in WW1


A ceramic bear


Nice spiral staircase


The WWI doughboys carrying the spirit of the Crusaders 


A feathery dinosaur


Chomp chomp says the fossilized fish


The wooly rhino was very small, smaller than a great Dane


Bright and beautiful


The central dome


A decorative panel on the front door


This excited zebra has a top knot


The top banner reads "Union of shop distributive and allied workers"


Jacques Cousteau in his later years grew to an immense size and would terrorize rural parts of France


Fun in the market looking for stickers


The guy at the market suggested that we look here


No stickers but lots of Quirk


Great buildings everywhere


World famous fried chicken


A big circle


Yikes oversized bees


Pride flags every


Hanging out


Whoooo scary


An inflatable lion suit?


Break the rules by wearing lederhosen in Wales


The caged hippo still glows


It has been 1 year and 25 days since we began our Migration


Thursday, June 29, 2023

29 June 2023: Netley to Cardiff: What a Wales of a Time

 



The driving portion of our program begins.  Enterprise delivered the car yesterday and we started out drive today at 10:30.  We had already replaced the furniture back to its original position and cleaned up our mess so we were able to load the car easily and take off.  The drive was performed masterfully by Leslie and the navigation was a solid C+ by Fritz.   Lunch was in Bath at the "Plate" and we sat outside so we could watch the bowlers nextdoor.  We had another 2 hours of driving to go and it went smoothly.  We got into Cardiff and checked into the hotel.  It was still pretty early so we walked over to a park and then jumped onto the Toot bus.  It is the local version of the Hop On Hop Off bus (HoHo).  We rode for an hour to the city center, out to the docks and back.  These docks were very busy sending coal out into the world back at the turn of the century.  They had 500 ships per month and this made the Marquis Bute a very rich man.  Now there are only 500 ships coming into the dock a year.  There was a major renovation with multiple new buildings being built.  We got back to the hotel for some happy hour fare.  It was not the best so we went out for more.   I got a spicy chicken with Thai Hot chilies and Sichuan pepper corns, whoooo!  Leslie got a veggi noodle dish and we called it a night.  Nice sunset to end the day


The quintessential English countryside


The Salisbury Cathedral 


Fancy eves on these brick buildings


Even the small towns have delightful buildings


Bath in t he distance


Our lunch spot


A beautiful terrace 


Filled with puns


Looking over the cathedral and a football pitch


Who you calling fatboy?


Tabasco is sanctioned by the Queen


More of Bath as we leave town


A very nice view blocked by a board


Heading over to Wales


A very large suspension bridge


With another span on the way


We are in Wales


The Hotel is storing spare mattresses on the 4th floor


An iconic clock tower, 60 meters tall


A mess of vines


The creek that runs through town


Our home for the next two nights


Another of the many Marquis Bule


I am guessing that this park is never locked


Not associated with the National Flatulence Awareness Committee


We are not sitting next to those two ladies



A mix of architectural styles


Cardiff Castle


The dragon flag of Wales


Tall spires everywhere


A different clock tower


Adorned with Biblical figures





The shields of the counties of Wales


All very bright and colorful


The Marquis wanted to get a menagerie of animals


But the City council decided it was too dangerous


So instead he got sculptures of animals


All peeking our from the top of the castle walls


The home of the National Rugby Team


Proud Mary keep on rolling


Very decorative


We are getting on the highway?


We have arrived to the newly redeveloped docks


Modern buildings


Actual ships


And yachts too


Whuhhh?


BBC filming studio


Dr. Whom is filmed here


Sailing sailing


a lock and dam system


A statue dedicated to Antartica


A Norwegian church dismantled in Norway and reassembled here


The Welsh Parliment building, i guess I will have to count this as another country


Looks fun


A local brewer of beer


In These Stones Horizons Sing and some thing else in Welsh


A coal sellers building




Does this disco ball rotate?


The red dragon


The ship piolots house


With a very elaborate weather vane


Some tall cliffs off in the distance


Performing arts building


The portrait of a sailor perhaps


Big sign small building


Unique buildings even in the residential areas


Dragon dome


A memorial to the soldiers from the Boer war


Winged and holding a branch


It is called the South African War here


Best shot of the day


A stroll through town


Red Thai chilies and Sichuan pepper corns, yummy


It was fast and surprisingly good


A church


Not a church


Hanging in there


So many Welsh words to say cyclists dismount


Caged Beast


Wired for fire



Sun setting


Going down


Down and out





We began our migration 1 year and 24 days ago