Cardiff Hotels

Stay in a Cardiff hotel and experience a Roman city with its eyes on the future. While its pivotal location brought trade power centuries ago, now the water’s edge is a showcase for 21st-century architecture, socialising and tourism.

Cardiff neighbourhoods

At the heart of the Welsh capital you’ll find the home of the Welsh Proms, St David’s Hall on the Hayes. Around this area shoppers buzz through the smart Victorian arcades, the indoor market and the high street. West is the 11th-century Cardiff Castle in pretty Bute Park. A mile from the city centre is the rejuvenated Cardiff Bay, a formerly dilapidated coal port now teeming with life thanks to restaurants, shops, bars, attractions and Doctor Who. The filming of the TV series in the city has detonated a mini touristic boom all of its own.

Shopping in Cardiff

Your good budgetary intentions will wobble more than a Shirley Bassey vibrato – she’s from round here, you know – on a shopping spree near your Cardiff hotel. You can pick up high-street brands along main drag Queen Street and pick up Welsh handmade jewellery, rare cheeses and Sixties miniskirts down one of the bisecting Victorian and Edwardian arcades. Under the glass roof of the indoor market, pots and pans are on sale alongside retro jazz albums. Down at the bay there’s Mermaid Quay, selling surf gear, three-piece suits and Welsh ice cream.

Eating and drinking in Cardiff

If people watching’s your thing, grab a table at one of the restaurants and bars in the living theatre that is the West End, also called the Brewery Quarter, around Mill Lane and St Mary Street. Amongst the many bars, South American, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Japanese and Bangladeshi restaurants hustle for your trade. There’s late-night inexpensive al fresco dining in Eastside, part of the St David’s Centre, plus Jamie Oliver’s first Welsh venture, Jamie’s Italian. Book ahead for the busy Mimosa Kitchen & Bar in Mermaid Quay or choose from dozens of waterside spots.

Culture and nightlife in Cardiff

The Wales Millennium Centre, or the Armadillo, is the bay’s centre for the performing arts and hosts anything from Tosca to Mamma Mia!. At the Cardiff Millennium Stadium, home of Welsh rugby, there’ll be an international one minute and a Madonna concert the next. Alternatively, hear some pitch-perfect voices at the Welsh National Opera at St David’s Hall. If a more intimate night suits, there’s drama, comedy and musicals nightly at the New Theatre on Park Place.

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