Things to Do in Cardiff

Cardiff Castle sits in the middle of the city, which still surprises people. A Norman keep on a motte, inside Roman walls, with a Victorian Gothic mansion attached that William Burges built for the third Marquess of Bute. The interiors are the reason to go. Behind it, Bute Park runs north along the River Taff for over a hundred acres.

The Principality Stadium is a ten minute walk from the castle and hosts Wales rugby internationals, football and major concerts under a retractable roof. Its position in the middle of a capital city, walkable from the main station, is genuinely unusual for a national stadium. Tours run on non-event days.

National Museum Cardiff in Cathays Park is free to enter and holds art and natural history in the same building, including the Impressionist collection bequeathed by the Davies sisters. St Fagans National Museum of History, on the western edge of the city, is also free: an open-air museum of more than forty historic buildings moved here from across Wales and rebuilt.

The arcades and the market. Six Victorian and Edwardian arcades run off the main shopping streets, full of independent shops, record stores and coffee places, and the covered Victorian market sits in the middle of it all. This is the part of Cardiff people remember.

Cardiff Bay is a couple of miles south, reachable by train in a few minutes. The Wales Millennium Centre, the Senedd, the waterfront at Mermaid Quay and a barrage you can walk across. There is much more in our guide to Cardiff Bay.

Cardiff works well with children largely because the distances are short. You can get from the castle to the museum to the park without anyone being carried, and Cardiff Bay is a few minutes away by train.

St Fagans is the one most families come back to. Children can go inside the buildings, there is space to run, and it costs nothing to get in. Techniquest in Cardiff Bay is hands-on science built for children rather than tolerating them. National Museum Cardiff has the natural history galleries, dinosaurs included, and again is free.

For outdoors, Bute Park is right behind the castle, Roath Park has a lake with boats and the lighthouse memorial to Captain Scott, and the Cardiff Bay barrage is a flat, pushchair-friendly walk with plenty to look at. Cardiff International White Water in the Bay takes older children for rafting and indoor surfing.

If you are visiting with a toddler, the Bay is the easier half of the city: level ground, cafés at regular intervals, and somewhere to stop every few minutes.

Cardiff is a good city for a day out that costs very little, largely because the national museums are free to enter. National Museum Cardiff and St Fagans both cost nothing, and between them they will fill a day.

Beyond the museums, Bute Park and Roath Park are free, the Cardiff Bay barrage walk is free, and the arcades and the Victorian market cost nothing to wander round. The grounds around the Senedd are open to the public and you can watch proceedings from the public gallery without paying.

What you will usually pay for is parking, so if you are driving, the park-and-ride sites on the edge of the city are cheaper than the centre and the train in takes a few minutes. If you are coming by rail anyway, Cardiff Central puts you in walking distance of nearly everything on this page.

Our guide to free days out in South Wales has more across the region.