Cardiff Day 2 - Lots of History

Sorry for the delay posting the second half of our Cardiff tour update... I had school work that got in the way of my travel and blogging.  How inconsiderate.

One really cool thing I wanted to add to Kristin's post from the first day.  The words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre, with the mix of Welsh and English.
As Kris posted, the Welsh reads: Creating truth like glass from inspiration's furnace.  The English reads: In these stones, horizons sing.  But when the Welsh and English are read together, it reads:
"Creating truth in these stones, like glass horizons, from inspirations furnace sing".  Quite a poetic way of embracing the two different cultures and languages.

We got an early start on our second day, by heading out to a car boot sale going on near our AirBNB.  This is essentially a garage or rummage sale, but where everyone comes to one big parking lot, and opens up the boot (trunk) of their car to show off what they're selling.  We figure we got there too late (about 9 am, when it started at 6 am), and, as with many garage sales, the best items were picked up early, so we struck out.

Although the bag of mini-donuts we bought while walking around were very good, they didn't do enough to count as a breakfast, so we found a little breakfast restaurant, called The Pot, to fuel up for the rest of the day.  I had 'the Full Welsh' breakfast, which included black pudding.  My first time trying this British specialty, which is a pork and oatmeal sausage that has the pork blood added to the mix.  I guess it was a way of not wasting anything.  Honestly, I'm undecided on them.

My 'full Welsh Breakfast', and Kristin's Chicken bacon sandwich and French Onion Soup

After breakfast we went back to the main square where the Christmas market was the night before to check if we'd missed any of the shops and stalls the previous night.  It's a really enjoyable atmosphere to walk around with a hot coffee (or mulled wine, but maybe not at 10 AM), and poke into all the different booths.

Once we'd had our fill there, we made our way up to St. Fagans National History Museum.  In order to preserve some of the rich history of Wales, they have set up a museum where old buildings of historical importance can be relocated and used as a life sized exhibit.  In some cases, where the building is made up of irregularly shaped 'bricks' the building will be dismantled and each brick, each fitting, every stone and beam numbered, so that it can be reassembled when it arrives.  We wandered through some homes that were hundreds of years old, and whose history has been documented throughout that time.

They have some great examples of trade workshops like an operating grain mill, and a blacksmiths forge.   I personally liked the blacksmiths forge.  Really felt a connection there.

This was a 'test' of the Iron Brands for the blacksmith.  They would use it to mark their tools, so temporary workers couldn't steal their tools.

In some cases, they have to recreate elements of the design from nothing more than grainy photos that were taken to showcase something completely different.  The stained glass windows in the photo below were reconstructed from a photo of a group of members standing in front of the building with the doors open, and the memories of a caretaker long since retired.  I forget where the pattern for the tiles was discovered, but they were personally cast for this restoration.  Really amazing to see how much detail and pride that the museum staff put into their work.

Kris especially liked how this sign apologized for having a site prepared for a new building.

A record of the tolls due to all passerbys, Fun to see how a horse cart is more expensive than a donkey cart etc.

And the kitchen of a 'pre-fab' house.  Popular immediately after the war, these were common houses for returning soldiers, and a way of keeping the factories running when the war effort was over.

They also had shops from the era, with samples that would be found in the shop.

Aaron, I thought of you for this one.

We stayed longer than we'd intended at St Fagans, and ended up missing the last tour of Castell Coch, a fairytale like castle, which was the 'summer home' of John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, who is also responsible for many of the most "recent" updates to the Cardiff Castle.

As we were heading that way on our way back to Loughborough, we stopped in anyway, and walked up to the castle.  Kris got a bunch of really striking photos.  We'll have to go back to tell anything about the interior.