A couple of months back, we visited the UK to attend our daughter’s master’s degree graduation at Oxford. We used the opportunity to visit and catch up with family and some friends as well. We managed to fit in some sight-seeing as well. I’ll be posting some of the photographs from that trip here on the blog in instalments. We spent a few hours one overcast, cold and rainy evening at Cardiff Bay. Here are some of our Glimpses of Cardiff Bay, UK.
We spend a couple of days with my good friend, fellow food blogger Jayasri and her family. They showed us around a bit of Bristol, Bath and Cardiff Bay. We drove about an hour from Bristol to reach Cardiff. Hot chocolate and coffee helped, but we didn’t linger there because of the weather. There’s a lot more to Cardiff than Cardiff Bay. We, however, spent just a little while at the Bay walking around some part of it.
Cardiff Bay in Cardiff, Wales, opens out on a freshwater lake that serves as a river mouth for the rivers Taff and Ely. Over a hundred years ago, coal mined in Wales was exported from Cardiff’s Bute Docks. The flourishing coal trade built Cardiff. Dockworkers and sailors from across the world settled in and around the docks. With declining coal production, the docks and surrounding areas fell into disuse. In recent times, the Cardiff Bay area has been redeveloped to become a vibrant place and a tourist destination.
The red coloured Pierhead stands out on Cardiff Bay. It was originally built as offices for the Bute Docks Company in 1897. Today it is part of the Senned Cymru (Welsh Parliament) estate. The clock on the building is unofficially known as the Big Ben of Wales.
Cardiff Bay has one of the largest colonies of seagulls in the UK. Easily available food waste, nesting places, few predators and warmth have made them town dwellers. They can be very aggressive and the huge population has become a problem for the citizens of Cardiff.
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