Day 8 leaves with us with a cruise along the Seine

As I type this draft of my blog past, we are sitting in the Paris airport waiting to board our flight. I didn't get a chance to type one up yesterday evening even though we gave ourselves two hours of free time to simply relax.

Our last day in Paris started out entertaining. Our tour guide, Tini, offered to take anyone who wanted to go to Montmartre by way of the Metro. Since our optional excursion to Giverny was cancelled due to lack of interest, Tom & I took the opportunity to not only see more of Paris/France but to also possibly learn how navigate the Metro.

Montmartre is on one of the steep hills of Paris. After making our way there via the Metro, some of us took a tram up to the top. To be honest, I would have climbed the steps with Tom but I was pretty tired with aching feet from the previous day (Friday). Plus the tram just seemed too interesting to pass up.

Once we reached the top, we took some pictures of magnificent views of Paris, a few including the Eiffel Tower in the distance. After Tini guided us down a few streets, we were able to explore on our own if we wanted. Tom and I back-tracked to the first place I saw crepes sold at (a nutella one at that!). Then we had our portrait drawn by one of the several artists drawing along the cobbled streets of Montmartre. The picture turned out great! We can't wait to show it to everyone.

We spent time looking around for last minute souvenirs then headed to the Metro where I seem to have figured out. Huzzah! We made one stop near a book store to get my mom a French cook book (it's not in English though, sorry) and a quick lunch. I had a "toastie" with ham and a sunny-side-up egg (yum), which is slightly comparable to a grilled cheese sandwich. After that, we decided we didn't have much else we wanted to do since Musee d'Orsay had too long of a line with not enough time, so we went back to our hotel room to pack and relax.

Around 5:45pm, we meet our tour group downstairs in the bar of our hotel for a free drink offered by the hotel. Shortly thereafter we headed out for our last optional excursion with our group which was a 3-course dinner with drinks and a cruise on the Seine river! It's too bad the two weren't combined because that would have made it even more amazing.

Dinner was fairly decent with split pea soup, bœuf bourguignon, and chocolate cake. I also drank way more wine than I usual do though I suppose that's not saying much seeing as I never drink wine (not a fan, it doesn't usually taste good). What made the evening dinner great was bonding with four of the people from our tour group and getting to know them better. Additionally, Tom got to rattle off all of his knowledge on medications as a Pharmacist and I do love seeing him share his wealth of knowledge.

Once dinner was over, we headed to the Seine River so that we could board our boat for the cruise. It was amazing! I never thought or considered I would be on a boat along the Seine River!! Despite the rain, Tom and I wandered all around the boat once it started moving. We took lots of pictures but most turned out dark or blurry which is a shame because Paris is truly beautiful when it's all lit up at night. The Eiffel tower is especially beautiful when it's lit up, even more so when lights dance on the Eiffel tower at one point. It was spectacular!

We had more bonding time with part of our tour group on the cruise. Then once the cruise was over and we made it back to our hotel, our group friends stopped at the bar across the street for a drink. Despite it being very late and the fact that our flight was leaving so early today, we hesitated to join them. However, I'm glad we changed our mind and joined them for drinks. They also passed out copies of the pages everyone signed their names with emails/phone numbers/addresses. I'm glad we'll be able to keep in touch.

Well, we're about to hop in line to board our flight. I'm desperately hoping we get to sleep on our flight from London to Philadelphia as we're both exhausted! We can't wait to see our families when we get back home.

Au revoir and cheers!

Day 7 has us all over Paris and Versailles

I haven't appreciated being off my feet and resting this much in awhile. Whew, we had an exhaustingly busy day in France!

First we took a guided bus tour around Paris with our tour group. Our local tour guide was excellent and very helpful. Unfortunately there were scattered rain showers all day today so I didn't take as many pictures while on the bus. However, we did make a couple of stops so that everyone had a chance for photo opportunities (and to us the toilets which are NOT free in France, ugh).

Of course one of the photo stops was the Eiffel Tower, which is even more magnificent in person compared to in pictures. :) Tom and I were able to get a fairly decent photo together in front of the Eiffel Tower. Huzzah!

We ended our morning tour of Paris shortly thereafter but most of us stayed on the bus to head to Versailles. Now, I have to admit that my knowledge of French history, culture, etc is a bit limited. However, going to Versailles showed to me that French history is beautiful yet rather complex. After we explored the gardens of Versailles (which were gorgeous with the daffodils, hedges, and statues), our tour guide showed us around the rooms open to the public for touring. I took way too many pictures but they only captured a fracture of the breathtaking architecture and artwork within every room. Basically, no words can ever describe the beauty of places with such deep, rich history.

Anyways, on our way back to our hotel, our tour director (Tini) asked everyone on the bus if they'd like to go to The Louvre with our tour guide. Although Tom and I were considering to the Opera/Ballet in Paris tonight then going to The Louvre and Musée d'Orsay tomorrow morning. However, we were inclined to go with a tour guide we had already known seeing as The Louvre is overwhelmingly humongous. Apparently if you only spent a minute at each piece in The Louvre, it would take you 24 days to go through the entire museum. Oy vey.

So our tour guide took us around to all of the really important pieces of art or sculptures or rooms to admire their beauty. This included the Mona Lisa (she's very famous, haha) and Cupid & Psyche sculpture that Tom really wanted to see. Similar to Versailles, everything within The Louvre was beyond amazing. I opted to not take any pictures and to just soak in everything I saw around me because there was just too much to see. I did take pictures of the outside of The Louvre which is fantastic on its own.

By the time we were done our tour at The Louvre, we were exhausted and our feet hurt. I tried a DELICIOUS macaron while Tom looked around for souvenirs before we grabbed a quick dinner at a nearby food court in a connected mall. One thing that I sort of like about Paris is that most shops close by 7 or 8pm, which gives us a reason to get back to our hotel room early before it gets too dark outside. This gives us more time to relax too!

It may not seem like we did much today but we did a ton of walking! I'm completely exhausted now. I can't imagine how I'll be tomorrow and Sunday though. Our trip to Giverny was cancelled unfortunately but our tour director, Tini, is offering to take the tour group to Montmartre. Then we'll be free to do what we'd like at noon until our evening with the tour group around 5pm. We have two personal missions to accomplish tomorrow: 1) try a crêpe and 2) buy a French cook book for my mom. Our food adventures thus far have been me trying bœuf bourguignonlast night (which came with French fries, haha) and Tom having an omelette du fromage (he asked me to share this tidbit in the blog).

Until next time, au revoir!

Day 6 takes us to France

Nous sommes à Paris! We are in Paris now!

Compared to our days in London, today has been a bit uneventful. This morning we boarded the Eurostar train with our tour group which took us from London to Paris in 2½ hours. I thought it would be more... impressive or even... shiny, I suppose. However, the train itself was sort of dingy. I do look forward to doing a bit more research regarding the Eurostar train but I'll save that for a later date when I'm not on a trip.

At the very least we were in good company! We got table seats and sat near a pair of sisters from Tennessee. Our tour group is so diverse that it's quite lovely getting to know everyone. There are people from all walks of life. Most have done a great deal of traveling but for a few (like Tom) this is their first international/European trip.

Anyways, we jumped ahead an hour and arrived in Paris around 2pm where we met our Paris tour director, Tini. She's so sweet and upbeat! Typically one would have the same tour guide throughout the entire trip. Yet due to some family problems that our planned tour director (Margaret) had, we ended up with two different tour directors.

The drive into Paris showed me just how modernized London is currently. Paris has that rich, antique architecture that I love. There are more streets paved with stone as to there just being plain pavement. And, really, there is just history every where you look -- including our hotel! Although they've updated the inside of our hotel location, they've kept a lot of the character which you can see by way of the bar in the hotel, the windows frames in the rooms, and much more. It's gorgeous while still making us feel comfortable.

Nevertheless, Tom and I are in a new city where we know very little of the language unfortunately. I've to speak some words but French locals seem to just know that you don't speak French. When possible I try to sneak in a 'bonjour' or a 'merci' to the best of my ability.

We did venture outside our hotel once we were settled in around 5pm. Since we have a limited amount of time in Paris and Tom has many more places that we'd both like to see, we decided to go to one place tonight that I wanted to take a picture of: Moulin Rouge. It was on an... interesting street to say the least. No matter though because it gave us the opportunity to explore the opposite side of Paris than what we'll be seeing tomorrow on our guided tour. Plus I found a large clothing store so I got my clothes shopping out of the way (a skirt and two scarves).

I don't imagine us getting as many souvenirs as we got in London if only for the fact that being in a city where you don't speak the language is a tad overwhelming. Hopefully we can enjoy ourselves though! There's a chance that our optional excursion to Giverny might not pan out because only two other people from our tour group signed up for the tour and they need at least 10 people signed up to make it worthwhile to go. :( Granted, it is a 2-3 hour trip one-way but it would still be nice to spend Saturday outside the busy city of Paris.

The good news about our hotel in Paris is that we have free internet access in our room. Alas, it should be much easier to make blog posts and add photos to Facebook. I think we're also planning to not stay out too late at night in Paris as well.

So until next time, au revoir!

Day 5 brings us aerial views of London

Our last full day in London was absolutely wonderful. We began our day with our first optional excursion of the day which was visiting two cathedrals in London -- St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Instead of following the audio guides at either church, we had a London local guide us around.

I have to admit that I was still a bit groggy from not getting much sleep the night before (remember, we were out and about until after 11pm the previous night), so I don't think I retained a lot of information from the St. Paul's cathedral tour. To be fair though, I really love going on tours of cathedrals in order to see the breathtaking architecture!

One of the facts that I learned about the first cathedral was that between 2002-2008 (roughly), there was a project done on the inside of the cathedral to give it a facelift of sorts. Using liquid latex, they applied the solution to the walls inside the cathedral to whiten/clean the walls up. You can really notice a difference because it was probably the cleaniest/newest-looking cathedral I've visited compared to my previous two trips to Europe (Spain and Ireland, if you're wondering). Saint Paul's Cathedral also had much more natural light as opposed to a multitude of stained glass windows which really made a difference because it wasn't as dimly lit as other cathedrals I've seen.

Westminster Abbey had a lot more meaning to me in more ways than one, so I definitely retained more information from my tour there. This is the church where William and Kate got married!! (I'm looking at you there, mom.) It was stunning to be inside the church where they were married because of course the church was breathtakingly beautiful.

This church was also home to the burial grounds for many important figures throughout history (i.e., Winston Churchill). However, most notable to me was the Poet Corner in the chapel where well-known authors were buried such as Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens. It may sound odd but I found this to be a bit exciting.

Anyways, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside either churches. Although we got lots of pictures of Saint Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey from the inside, it just doesn't show the amazing architecture on the inside. So I bought guide books with pictures that do each church justice and share some history that I learned today.

Tom and I were done with our morning excursion around 12:30pm. We were free to spend the afternoon as we pleased but had to meet up with our tour group again for our evening optional excursion after 5pm. We took the Jubilee Line of the Underground to three consecutive stops. First we stopped at Bond Sreet station to go to a store that my friend Jenny had recommended -- Primark. It's a store that sells men and women's clothing at excellent prices. In fact, I snagged a dress for only 5GBP (British pounds, until I get the symbol later). The only downside to the store was that it was SUPER busy and the line for the dressing rooms were way too long. I'm really hoping that the two dresses that I bought fit nicely (*fingers crossed*).

Then we headed to Baker Street station where the Sherlock Holmes museum is located. There was about a 20-minute wait as the line was fairly long and the tour itself would have taken about 30 minutes. Seeing as it was getting pretty close to 5pm at that point, we opted to skip the tour and browse the gift shop instead.

Afterwards, we headed straight to St. John's Wood station to go to a little well-known street called Abbey Road. For any of you who are fans of The Beatles, we did our best to get pictures of ourselves walking across the crosswalk. We also signed the white wall near the crosswalk which is pretty famous in London as well as it's a place where fans sign their name with or without lyrics.

Once we were finished with all of our personal stops, we headed to meet our tour group at the London Eye! It was truly an amazing experience to ride the London Eye. They first take you inside a nearby building where you're shown a 4-D movie clip (about 5 minutes long) to sort of prepare you for what to expect on the London Eye. Then we headed straight for the London Eye and quickly boarded our pods (our large group was split between two pods). Seeing aerial views of London was absolutely fantastic!! The members of our group are sincerely nice and have been kind enough to take pictures of Tom & myself when we've asked. We even bought a photo print that was taken by the shop while we were aboard the London Eye. It turned out really well thankfully.

We ended our day by going out to our three course pub meal with members of our tour group which was included in the optional excursion of the evening. I'm proud to say that I got to each fish and chips before leaving London! I also tried a dessert called -- ahem -- spotted dick (I swear that's what it's called!). It's a sponge cake with sultanas (raisins) in these creamy, sweet sauce. It was really delicious! If you're wondering, my starter item was light breaded mushrooms with blue cheese dipping sauce. Yum!

So we had a fantastically successful last day in London. Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us as jump back to be another hour behind the US (for a total of a 6-hour time difference). We'll be leaving our hotel pretty early to take the Eurostar train to Paris, France! Can you believe that the trip will only take a little over two hours to get to France? TWO HOURS! Personally, it's hard to believe since it took us 4 hours just to get to the otherwise of the UK when we travelled to Cardiff. I'm definitely looking forward to the quick trip tomorrow.

Until next time, cheers!

Day 4 takes to Bath and Stonehenge

Today is the fourth day of our adventure during which we spent the least amount of time in London. In fact, after a delayed start (our bus was very late), we rode two hours to the town of Bath to see the town as well as the Roman Baths. The town of Bath is very different from London. It almost reminded me of Salamanca, Spain, with its stone streets not filled with cars whizzing past you. It definitely felt better to feel safer walking across the streets without worrying about the hustle & bustle of traffic.

As soon as we arrived in Bath, we had about an hour of free time. We stopped at this quaint restaurant called Bath's Buns. It was a tiny restaurant with each table having mismatching tea cup sets (I took pictures). I experienced my first English tea here by having Roseship and Hisbiscus tea! No wonder the Brits like tea so much -- they add milk with sugar to tea to make it taste better. I also ordered a potato jacket (a baked potato cut in half with whatever meat you order in the middle) and we shared a scone. It was adorable! It was definitely a great place to go for a quick lunch.

We then met up with our group to go to the Roman Baths. There was so much to see and learn but certainly not enough time! England seems to very keen on audio tours using a little walkie-talkie of sorts that everyone can carry individually to listen to as you go to each of the numbered stations. It's quite useful really. In any case, we got to take pictures inside but I missed my chance to touch the water.

Anyhow, we only had about an hour to do the Roman Baths tour before we headed back to the bus to travel to Stonehenge. It was another hour ride on the bus and by the time we made it to Stonehenge, we had less than hour to listen to the audio tour. It was very cold and beginning to rain by the time we got there. Again, we took quite a few pictures and learned about the Stonehenge rock formation. There was lots to learn today!

We had another 2-hour ride back to London on the bus. Tom and I didn't want to waste any time once we got back to our hotel room, so we as soon as we dropped our souvenirs, we headed to Swiss Cottage Station (the nearest Underground station for us). We've basically mastered the tube system and it really is as easy as everyone says it is which is a relief!

Tom and I made our way to the Tower of London station (Tower Hill) and took pictures of the Tower Bridge from a different angle. Once I learned how to use the night setting on my camera (I have to use a timer for it to work properly), I took some excellent photos of the bridge at night! We took a few more pictures before heading back to the Underground to go to Picadilly Circus. It's very similar to Times Square in NYC. After taking pictures, we spent a bit too much time in a souvenir shop nearby (oops). By the time we were done looking all around it was past 11:15pm.

It was a truly wonderful day. I could honestly spend at least a full day in Bath as it's such a lovely town. Tom and I are both looking forward to our last day in London tomorrow. Aside from the excursions we opted for, we'll also be going to Baker Street to see the Sherlock Holmes museum and Abbey Road (if you're a fan of The Beatles, then you'll understand the reference). It'll be fun!

Until next time, cheers!

Day 3 begins our whirlwind tour of London

Today was our first day with our tour group. Since we missed the welcome dinner that Go Ahead Tours provided last night, it was nice to meet our group for the first time today.

With our tour group we spent the better part of the morning sightseeing on a motorcoach bus. I was admittedly bummed that it wasn't a red double-decker bus but I can't really complain as our tour guide (not tour group manager) was hilarious. We went all around London on the coach bus so I didn't take many pictures. I mostly took in the facts that the tour guide was giving us as well as soaking up as many of the sights as possible. We did make a stop to get some great photos of the London Tower/Bridge!

Afterwards, we headed to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards! It was loads of fun even though the first time we saw them they didn't have their marching band with them. When we moved closer to Buckingham Palace, we got to see the guards from slightly farther away but at least the marching band was accompanying them! Two fun facts: 1) Did you know that the guards don't wear red suits during the winter? Instead they wear grey; 2) The Queen has 5-6 homes, including Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and a place in Edinburgh -- you'll know where she's staying at depending on whether her personal flag is up.

We did more sightseeing onboard the bus which was really quite a whirlwind. As I mentioned, our tour guide was quite funny and I had fun geeking out as he mentioned places where the Harry Potter movies were filmed at and any literary character references he made. :)

At the end of our sightseeing tour, Tom and I stayed on the bus as we had opted for the optional excursion that day: Windsor Castle. If there's one thing you should know about me, it's how much I absolutely LOVE castles. Windsor Castle was incredibly impressive from the outside and equally breathtaking on the inside. The downside was that we didn't get to take pictures once we were inside. (Though I imagine that being a good thing for my camera as I'm sure I would have taken hundreds of photos!!) The upside was that the Queen was staying at Windsor Castle! However, we didn't run into her or anything. Oh, well.

The rooms in only part of the castle were ginormous. Everything was absolutely stunning. I know my mom would have loved seeing the first room of tour which held an intricate doll house given to the Queen. I think the room that stood out most in the mind though was the one room with the less shiny stuff (no procelain plates or lots of silver/gold embellishments). It was the room with insanely high ceilings that had coats of arms ON the ceiling of all of the guards knighted. There were even white/blank coat of arms for knighted (I think I'm using the right word there) guards who had done something wrong or dishonest.

Once our tour of Windsor Castle was over, Tom and I hurried over to St. George's church. Another aspect of European countries that I love are their beautifully intricate churches. They are beyond amazing! Of course we were also not allowed to take pictures inside and words really cannot desribe the detail we saw as we walked through the church.

Before leaving the Windsor Castle tour, I stopped to take a picture a guard! I really wanted to try to make him laugh or break his serious pose but, alas, I was unsuccessful.

Tom and I made a quick stop at some shoppes then we headed to meet the rest of our group at our tour bus to head back to our hotel. By the time we did get back though, we only had time to drop off our things and freshen up before meeting up with my friend Jenny who is studying for her Masters degree in London. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Spaghetti house and spent lots of time catching up. Then we met up with one of her closest friends from her university. Our plan was to go clothes shopping but it was far too late to do so. Instead we took the Underground to Trafaglar square. We didn't get many good pictures as it was too dark but it was lit up enough to enjoy the colorful lights of the fountains (and for Tom to climb up one of the huge statues).

So that was our our day! Busy with lots of facts and enjoying a quiet evening out with friends. Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us as we're traveling to Stonehenge and Bath but I'm so excited for the excursion!

Until next time, cheers!

PS: I will be editing this post at a later date to correct grammar and spelling mistakes as well as adding pictures & links where necessary.

Our amazing adventure to Cardiff!

Today we ventured to Cardiff. It was such an amazing trip. The train ride was quite long -- approximately 4+ hours going from London Paddington to Cardiff Central. Thankfully the trip to Cardiff Central was peaceful and although the return trip to London Paddington included a fussy baby in our cabin, we got to watch episodes of Doctor Who (DW) free of charge (each seat had its own little TV screen built into the back of the headrest).

Speaking of which, the DW episodes we watched were partially referenced during The Doctor Who Experience tour we went on and that was the whole purpose of ourjourney today! The moment the train pulled into Cardiff Central, Tom and I dashed off to the museum as we had less than hour to get there by foot (we had trouble hailing a taxi). Thanks to some very nice locals, a couple of maps, and Tom's brains, we made it to The DW Experience with minutes to spare.

The tour itself was fantastic!! For a brief moment I almost chickened out when I heard it compared to a haunted house (one of my biggest fears) but I'm glad I went through the whole tour. It's about a 30-minute long tour where you get to experience life as the Doctor's compainion along with 20 other tourists -- or, as the Doctor called us, shoppers! The tour vaguely reminded of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, where you get to be a spy of sorts during that tour.

First we entered a room with a large screen and bench seating. The screen had a vertical crack in it (as opposed to horizontal) which was a nice reference to the beginning of the 11th Doctor's serials. The video that we watched was about 5 minutes long it and it was a bit of a trailer for the show. I should mention now that the tour was very centered around the 11th Doctor, so he was the one in all of the videos.

Next we walked into another large room with all sorts of artifacts from DW episodes (a few were even from past Doctors, but not many). Granted, the only two artifacts I recognized from episodes of the 10th Doctor was the giant telescope (remember the Queen and werewolves, anyone?) and the life-like white stone face statue from the "Silence in the Library" episode (10 & Donna). All of the artifacts were quite amazing!

After watching a clip of 11 babble on about being trapped in a second Padorica box, he made the TARDIS appear so that we as his companions -- or shoppers -- could try to help/save the Doctor.

SO WE WERE IN THE TARDIS!!! Once we piled inside around the center console, another video of 11 popped on and he instructed us to navigate the TARDIS. Even though mostly children were told to usethe controls, I happed to luck out stnading next to one of the navigation controls. So together we made the inside of the TARDIS move and light up! (Again, it was all built to scale and very life-like.) Even the floor shifted at various points to make it feel like we were flying and smoke raised up from under the ground. IT WAS SO AWESOME!!

Anyhow, the Doctor then directed us to the next room in which life-size Daleks came out from three different areas of the room. SO COOL! They were there and so close and so huge! I was totally geeking out even though they're enemy of the Doctor. Eleven somehow bartered with them so that we could go through to the next corridor without being exterminated. (My apologies here -- I was trying to take in everything going on in the room, so my memory is a bit hazy.)

Next, per the Doctor's instructions, we followed a corridor that was nearly pitch black. Angels with fog surrounding them kept appearing!! I honestly thought that my anxiety/fear was going to kick into high gear. However, thankfully the weeping angels never got too close to wehre we walked. Plus I remembered to NOT BLINK!

Then we went into another room where we were given 3-D glasses. A screen off ot the left popped on showing 11 who babbled on regarding to how we saved/helped him (I think). Then a huge screen in the front center of the room was revealed showing the opening sequence of Doctor Who but some of his most notable enemies were flying through the space sequence. With our 3-D glasses, they were very life-like and popping out of the screen! The three that I can remember are a Dalek, weeping angel, and cyberman. IT was a pretty neat way to end that part of the tour, though a bit anti-climatic.

Once the live-action part of the tour was over, we got to wander around the museum at our own leisurely pace. There were lots of cool props, costumes, and life-size monsters recreated in the museum. There were even a few versions of the inside of the TARDIS set up! I took loads of pictures which you'll be able to check out on my Facebook so I'll spare you the boring details of everything we saw. However, I will mention the nifty kids stations they had set up like learning how to walk like the monsters from the show, operating a Dalek, recording & playing your own sounds for DW enemies, and more. I still think the show is way too mature/scary for kids but it was neat that the stations were there.

Once we finished exploring the museum, we stopped at the souvenir shop to pick a few gifts for oursevles and others. Before we left the museum, we picked up the t-shirt and other gifts that came with our ticket package. It was great!

So Tom and I left the museum to wander around Cardiff Bay for a bit, taking photos but primarily looking for a place to grab lunch. Tom noticed a sign for a small restaurant on a stationary ship. Cardiff Bay is surrounded by water (much like the Cheasapeake Bay back at home). So it only made sense for us to eat aboard this boat. IT was a great experience too! I was adventrous and had a chicken cornation "toastie" which is their for for a grilled sandwich. Coronation chicken is like a chicken salad mix but it's spicy and mustard-like. IT qas really yummy so I'm glad I tried it.

The few others on board the ship having a lunch there were very friendly as well. They suggested we explore the rest of the ship after we were done including the upper deck and below where ther was a small church. Then, after I laughed out loud to a Torchwood joke one of the men made, he recommended we visit the castles of Cardiff. All great suggestions!

After taking lots of photos of the ship, we headed out to explore Cardiff Bay. Our intentions were to find out a way to the Cardiff castles but we got distracted by Mermiaid Quay -- a strip of shops and restaurants along Cardiff Bay. We did more souvenir shopping because the quaint shops were too lovely to pass up!

Then we ran into taxis waiting near Mermaid Quay. We asked for a ride to take us to the Castles of Cardiff. Although we didn't get to go inside for the tour, we did get some cool photos of the outer parts of the castles and a nearby park, both of which were lovely.

By that time it was 4:30pm and with our train leaving in 45 minutes, we figured we should attempt to find our way back to Cardiff Central train station. We did so enough time to spare ocnsidering we were walking there and navigating our second new city (and country) in two days.

All in all we had an incredibly succesfful day considering we did it all on our own without it being part of our tour. My only regret is not staying in Cardiff for at least once night to see more of it! For anyone considering a trip to the U.K., I highly recommed visiting Cardiff/Cardiff Bay as it is simply beautiful.

Until next time, au revor!

PS: I will be editing this post at a later time to correct any spelling and grammar errors. I will add appropriate links and pictures later too!