Known as the ‘city within a city,’ Llandaff didn’t become a part of Wales’ capital until 1922. The county borough of Cardiff was extended to include Llandaff and it officially became part of the city – hence its ‘city within a city’ status.

But Llandaff has a history and character of its own that makes it stand out from other parts of Cardiff. Stepping onto the Cathedral Green, for instance, you would think that you were in the middle of a chocolate box village rather than part of a bustling capital city.*

*From a Wales on Line article

For breakfast I chose to sample butternut pancakes with fruit compote, one of the cooked-to-order options. They were tasty but would have benefited with more fruit compote in relation to the stack of pancakes.

We then drove to the Royal Mint for one of their tours. The tour was excellent and informative. We opted not to print our own commemorative coin at the end of the tour; the current pressing is 80 years of Monopoly, which whilst iconic and perfect for a specialist coin collector didn’t float our boat. We learned about how coins are produced from design production through die production to coin manufacture.

We elected to have lunch in the Royal Mint’s café before driving to the nearby Llandaff Cathedral. The Cathedral Green car park was full leading us to rely upon the SatNav to find another local car park. It was well hidden off a small side road.

The cathedral is lovely but apart from a few remaining Norman aspects the cathedral is mostly Victorian. During WWII a bomb landed on the green next to the building which caused a lot of damage and subsequent reconstruction. In the nave, just in front of the choir a modern artwork depicting Jesus ‘Christ in Glory’ dominates the view.

Before leaving Llandaff, we discovered the remains of the town’s castle and bell tower.

We had a difficult journey when we arrived back in Cardiff. The Satnav indicated a road which had road markings that were difficult to understand in heavy traffic. We entered the road just too late to realise that we were travelling where we shouldn’t be, causing us to do a U-turn in a bus layby with an oncoming bus and busy flowing traffic.

Later we dined in Ty Madeira. It just had to be done after the forced last-minute cancellation of our Madeira holiday. The food, service and experience were excellent. We were seated next to the food counter and kitchen area so I was able to watch the food being cooked (including flame grilling) and the meat and fish being prepared.

We had a nightcap in The Cottage before returning to the hotel where we had to request a few items that had not been restocked by room service. I was impressed that they were delivered to our room 5 minutes later.