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Cardiff: Welsh for "Land Where Umbrellas Go to Die"

This headline and photograph best summarizes our weekend trip to Cardiff, capital of Wales. I can't recall the last time I was in a city that was SO wet and SO windy.   One drunk Welshman told us a local saying about the Welsh weather:  "Wales keeps the rain so we can drown the Englishmen away!"

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We took a coach (long-distance bus) from London to Cardiff. Our first long bus trip in Europe. Total time 3 hours, and just £8 ($15) per person, one-way, about 1/3 the price and 10 minutes shorter than a train for the same journey. Saturday was actually turned out to be a nice day. We managed to hit the big tourist sites including Cardiff Castle, a beautiful park behind the castle, saw a rowing race, wandered through small downtown pedestrian zone and finished off the evening with dinner at Cardiff Bay, which reminded us of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, only much much smaller.  We stayed in a cute B&B about 15 minutes walk from downtown called the Lincoln House. Nice rooms and traditional Welsh breakfast (which is the exact same thing as an English Breakfast). On Sunday we hit the Cardiff National Museum and a few pubs.

On Sunday, we woke up to the sound of rain. And "rain" is an understatement. We're talking about pouring SHEETS of water that were coming down at 45 degree angles.  It rained this way for the ENTIRE day.  We had to check out of our B&B by 11am so there was nothing we could do but suck it up and drive on.

I HATE rain. My tolerance for rain has improved since we moved to London, but nothing prepared us for Welsh rain. It rained the ENTIRE day. No breaks. Even worse, we were not properly dressed for the weather. Instead of wearing a waterproof ski jacket or parka like locals, we were wearing jeans and wool coats that soaked up water like sponges. It SUCKED!  At one point, we had to walk 20 minutes in a torrential downpour from Cardiff central to Cardiff Bay.  And our umbrellas -- which we got free from the Evening Standard newspaper -- were absolutely worthless. They kept turning inside-out and finally the little metal arms snapped off, one by one.

Mosaic7041195_1 As the sun began to set, it briefly stopped raining. By this point, our umbrellas were done for. Practically every trash can in Cardiff was stuffed with dead "Brollys". We took a cab back to our hotel, retrieved our luggage, took another cab to the train station and got out of dodge on the last train to London.

Cardiff was a neat little town to visit, but unless you are a duck, I would not recommend living there or staying longer than two days. 

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