27 May 2014

Taffs Well/Cardiff day 3

A cold morning kept us in the house for longer than usual this morning. Also, Nikita rang us using Skype for the first time. We adored Louie from the other side of the world, and spoke to his mother too. Jim came home from work and said hello. The call was quite successful, so there will be more of the same in the future.

We finally left the cottage just before 10 AM, and walked down to the local hairdresser in Taffs Well. Robyn is having her hair trimmed there on Thursday morning. We will set the alarm for that one.

The train station is about 10 minutes walk from our place - we caught a bus at the stop about 2 minutes walk away. It took us right to the heart of Cardiff; and dropped us opposite Cardiff Castle. Because we'd already seen it in 2006, we checked out the city mall instead.

 The day was still cold and rainy, so we spent time in shops, looking around. After grabbing a local map, we looked around some more and then found some lunch. That was served by the good people in "Revolucion de Cuba". The tucker was Spanish Cuban cuisine. And it was really good. The lunch special was only 6 pounds each. I had empenadas, and Robyn had chicken (of course!), on skewers. The highlight though, was dessert; churros. These are thick sweet donut fingers served with two sauces. One was chocolate, and the other was caramel butter with rum in it. Delicious ! Too soon all eight of them were gone. Sigh. Robyn was talking about coming back; and I'd like to try some of their drinks. Their main bar is about 15 metres long, and the shelves behind are crammed with spirit bottles. Plenty of cocktails there.

 Empenadas with Rum sauce

 

Churros and rum flavoured caramel -Yum ! (oh- and chocolate sauce too)

After lunch we headed for Cardiff museum & art gallery.

The art gallery was quite impressive. It had 3 main themes; painting, statuary, and ceramics. The paintings included portraiture from around 1500 to the 1800s. Many of these had been done on comission by a rich man, and the subject was his wife, or children, or himself. I thought there were too many portraits at the expense of other paintings - Robyn disagreed.

They had an exhibition of a Welsh painter called Innes. He painted the same mountain about a hundred times. Some of his other paintings were good though, even if Robyn didn't stick around to see them. She spent about one minute in there, and shot through. I looked around them all and liked some of the landscapes.

The impressionists also had a room to themselves. Manet, Monet, Pissaro, and others I can't remember all painted stuff. The paintings looked like the stuff they painted. That was good - full marks there.

 

Monet's Waterlillies

We didn't bother going into the "Contemporary Art" section. I've had experiences in modern art galleries before. I'm afraid I need the guide book to work out what three or four lines on a canvas mean to me. Anyway, we were running out of time.

The ceramics were mostly homewares - bowls, plates, dishes, teapots, glass ware etc. All of it was very nice, but the gallery had tons of it. a man by the name of De Winton had donated his entire collection, which was huge; and they had more besides that. I looked at it until my eyes glazed over (get it?). It has to be said that it was lovely stuff, but there was simply too much of it.

In every corner and nook of the place, there were marble busts of people. Almost all of them were men, and most of those seemed to be local Welsh businessmen, politicians, peers, and military officers. Again, the pieces were expertly crafted, but there were too many. Really, one bearded marble guy from 1850 looks just like another after a while.

Someone famous from the 1800s!

The gallery did have a number of pieces by Rodin - both carved statues and cast bronze. They were impressive. A famous bronze called "The Kiss", from Dante's "Inferno" was there. It is larger than life size, and must weigh a ton. I don't know how they got it up to the first - just glad I wasn't around when they were moving it.  

There were a few dozen other bronze castings, most of the recognizable as people or animals. There was only the shapeless occasional blob of metal (or porcelain) which had cost the tax payer a fortune. I wish I'd done one of those.

After a cup of tea, we walked back to the middle of town. There was a town market; this offered meats, fruit and vegetables, sweets, teas and general foodstuffs. Also, of course there were stalls displaying clothing, jewellery and accessories. Best of all though was the record shop upstairs. They had quite a lot of CDs and DVDs, but also thousands and thousands of second hand LPs. They had everything from classical to rock. What a pity I couldn't buy any of them. It was good to look just the same.

From here, we walked along the mall a bit further, dodging the rain until we came to The Royal Arcade. More of the same stuff we get in Australia. There was a deli though - selling everything from "Welsh Caviar" (it's bloody seaweed !) to local beers and spirits.

Finally, after looking through another arcade, we headed for the bus stop. The one we were waiting for never arrived, but luckily, there are two routes going through Taffs Well. We ran after a "132", and caught it just before it left the stop. After that we could relax until we got off at Taffs Well Inn. No, I didn't go in.....   Actually this was one stop too early, but it was only a short walk home.

My feet are a bit sore after a day on them. It is time for the domestic stuff, and some rest before heading out again tomorrow.

Lex and Robyn say nitey night.