We've had a lot of fun on our many adventures throughout England, but this weekend we thought we would venture out to Wales. We stayed in the outskirts of a city called Cardiff. Our first evening we decided to take a bus ride from the hotel to the city centre of Cardiff. I believe it was the kids first city bus ride. We arrived in Cardiff around 630 pm to get some dinner. However, we found it very hard to find somewhere to eat where kids were allowed. The streets were full of pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and shops. After asking if kids were allowed at the 5th restaurant and getting turned away, we started observing the fact that we didn't see any other children around. I think we searched for about an hour before we found a gourmet burger restaurant that allowed children. I have to say it was worth the search because the burgers were fabulous. After we ate, we walked around the city a bit before catching the bus back to the hotel. The next morning we woke up and headed to The St. Fagans National History Museum. It is an open air museum that lets you see what it was like to live in Wales from Celtic times to present day. We really enjoyed seeing all the different houses and buildings as well as the furniture, tools, products, and the very basic way of living. We even experienced a pig rolling around in the mud. By the end of the day my feet were sore. We went to a different part of downtown Cardiff called Cardiff Bay hoping that we would have better luck finding a place to eat. Unfortunately even though this part of the city was more kid friendly it was hard to find somewhere without reservations. We ended up at fish restaurant called Harry Ramsdens. It was okay. After dinner we headed to the restaurant in our hotel. We spent hours there, having drinks, snacks, and playing charades at the table. The bartenders and waitresses had so much fun watching us. One of them said she couldn't contain herself from smiling all night watching us. They even pitched in a few times trying to guess what we were trying to act out. The next morning we headed to Caerphilly Castle. Caerphilly Castle is the second largest castle in Britain and it's surrounded by a moat. It was the most raw castle we've seen and exactly what you would expect to see in a castle. It was so much better than the Warwick Castle in that it didn't have all the furniture, wax figures, and reinactments. It was just the bare castle that you could walk thru unguided, climb on the walls, and just explore. I was also able to get the souvenir from Wales that I really wanted...a Love Spoon.
The custom of carving and giving Welsh Lovespoons originated in Wales hundreds of years ago. The young men of Wales would spend hours carving the spoon with his own hands, in the hope that the girl would accept it. If the girl accepted the spoon, she would demonstrate her interest in him and they would commence on a relationship, which is the origin of the word 'spooning'.
