Things to Do in Cardiff, United Kingdom: Walking Guide
Things to Do in Cardiff: Castles, Museums and Historic Streets
Cardiff is the capital of Wales, where Roman remains, medieval castles, Victorian architecture, museums and creative spaces come together in a compact city. The best things to do in Cardiff range from exploring Cardiff Castle and National Museum Cardiff to discovering the historic centre, Cardiff Bay and the open-air collections at St Fagans. Neywo has a free audio guide for Cardiff with 174 narrated places.
What to See in Cardiff
Cardiff Castle: Roman foundations and Gothic Revival interiors
Cardiff Castle brings together several layers of history in one city-centre site. A Roman defensive encampment occupied the location in 55 AD, followed by a larger Roman fort in the third century. Parts of that Roman presence remain visible today.
In 1091, Norman forces established a motte-and-bailey castle on the remains of the fort. During the twelfth century, sections were rebuilt in stone, including a shell keep and substantial defensive walls. The castle was attacked during conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, and it was stormed in 1404 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.
The site later became a Victorian Gothic Revival mansion as well as a historic fortress. Its combination of Roman remains, medieval defences and nineteenth-century interiors makes it one of the essential things to do in Cardiff.
National Museum Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff, or Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd, is Wales’s national museum for art and natural history. It stands in Cathays Park beside Cardiff City Hall and forms part of the Amgueddfa Cymru, or Museum Wales, network.
The national art collection occupies the first floor. It includes paintings, drawings, sculpture and ceramics, with works by Turner, Monet, Rodin and Van Gogh, as well as art by Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso. The Impressionist collection is a particular highlight, bringing together fine art and applied art in the same museum.
For a more hands-on visit, the Clore Discovery Centre includes objects such as fossils, insects and weapons. The museum was founded in 1905 and received a royal charter in 1907.
Cathays Park and Cardiff’s civic architecture
Cathays Park forms one of Cardiff’s most impressive architectural quarters. The New Theatre, City Hall of Cardiff, Cardiff Crown Court, Glamorgan Building, Bute Building and Temple of Peace and Health are among the buildings that shape this part of the city.
The area also includes Cardiff University Main Building, Aberdare Hall and the Redwood Building. Together, these landmarks show the formal civic and academic character of the Welsh capital. The gardens and surrounding streets make Cathays Park especially well suited to a Cardiff self-guided walking tour.
The historic arcades and Cardiff Market
Cardiff’s covered arcades are among the city’s most distinctive places to explore. Castle Arcade, High Street Arcade, Duke Street Arcade and Morgan Arcade combine ornate architecture with independent shops, cafés, bakeries, bars and vintage stores.
The arcades connect naturally with the central streets and Cardiff Market. Nearby, the Old Library houses the Museum of Cardiff, making it possible to combine shopping, architecture and local history in the same walk.
Museum of Cardiff
The Museum of Cardiff, also known as the Cardiff Story Museum, focuses on the city’s history through objects connected with the people and communities who have lived here. Its collection contains around three thousand objects and Cardiff-related artefacts, many donated by local residents and community groups.
The museum occupies the Old Library, or Yr Hen Lyfrgell, a Grade II star listed building at the northern end of The Hayes. Its exterior has a colonnaded design, while the original entrance corridor contains ornamental tiles depicting the four seasons and the transition from night to morning. The building also retains its original vertical tubed heaters.
Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral
Also known as the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of St David, Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral is the Catholic cathedral of Cardiff and the centre of the Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia.
The present building was constructed between 1884 and 1887 by Pugin and Pugin. Built from Pennant sandstone in an Early English style, it has a four-stage tower, a high five-light window and a hammerbeam roof over the seven-bay nave. The interior includes side chapels and confessionals, while great arches lead towards the two-bay choir beneath a circular window.
The church became a cathedral in 1920 and was listed as Grade Two in 1975.
Cardiff Bay and BayArt
Cardiff Bay offers a different side of the city, shaped by its industrial and cultural development. The Coal Exchange, Mount Stuart Square, the Wales Millennium Centre, Roald Dahl Plass, the Pierhead Building and the Senedd building all feature in the waterfront landscape.
BayArt adds a contemporary creative dimension. This artist-led gallery presents changing exhibitions by emerging and mid-career artists from Welsh communities and elsewhere. Above the exhibition space, Butetown Artists manage sixteen studios and a studio flat for artist residencies or research, making BayArt a working creative complex as well as an exhibition space.
Castell Coch
Castell Coch, or the “Red Castle”, stands on a wooded hillside above Tongwynlais. Its Gothic Revival silhouette was created in the nineteenth century on the remains of an older fortification.
The Normans built a castle here after 1081 to protect Cardiff and control the route along the River Taff. Gilbert de Clare later constructed a stone fortification between 1267 and 1277. The ruins passed to the Bute family in 1760, and John Crichton-Stuart, the third Marquess of Bute, commissioned William Burges to create a country residence.
Burges rebuilt the exterior between 1875 and 1879, using the medieval remains as a foundation. His team completed the interiors in 1891. The result is a striking combination of medieval remnants and Gothic Revival design.
St Fagans Castle and the National Museum of History
St Fagans Castle is an Elizabethan mansion built around 1580 on the site of a ruined Norman fortification. Both the house and its remaining medieval fortifications are Grade I listed.
The castle grounds are home to St Fagans National Museum of History, where historic buildings have been re-erected to show aspects of life in Wales. Among the reconstructed buildings are Denbigh Cockpit, St Teilo’s Church, Abernodwydd Farmhouse and Stryd Lydan Barn.
Denbigh Cockpit dates from the late seventeenth century and originally stood in the yard of the Hawk and Buckle Inn on Vale Street in Denbigh. After cockfighting was banned in Britain in 1849, it was used for other purposes before being moved to St Fagans. It opened to the public at the museum in 1970.
St Teilo’s Church was moved from Llandeilo Tal-y-Bont, near Pontarddulais, and reconstructed as it may have looked in 1520. Traditional techniques were used, including lime mortar, natural mineral paints and hand-cut oak. Its painted walls are based on medieval decoration that survived beneath later lime plaster.
A free audio guide for exploring Cardiff
Neywo turns a visit into a Cardiff audio guide that follows your route through the city. Each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.
The Cardiff guide includes six walking tours and one bus route:
- Castle Quarter: Romans, Normans and Victorian Arcades — 1.8 km, 86 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
- Cathays Park: Wales’s White City — 1.88 km, 85 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
- From Coal to Parliament: Cardiff Bay — 1.71 km, 77 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
- St Fagans: A Village of Welsh Buildings — 1.64 km, 92 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
- Llandaff: A Cathedral Village in the City — 2.6 km, 59 minutes and 5 narrated stops.
- Chapels, Cathedral and Squares: Cardiff’s Living Centre — 3.03 km, 104 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
- Cardiff Bay 8: Techniquest to the Senedd — a 3.2 km bus route lasting 14 minutes, with 5 narrated stops.
Download Neywo and explore Cardiff with the places’ stories playing as you arrive. It is a free, self-guided way to discover the city without joining a group or following a schedule. When you continue exploring Wales, you can also discover Wales, nearby Newport, Swansea or St Davids.
Places with an audio guide in Cardiff
8 places in Cardiff with a Neywo audio guide. Each one starts telling its story as you reach it.
Self-guided tours in Cardiff
7 tours in Cardiff, free in the Neywo app. Each stop tells its story as you reach it.
- Bus ride
Cardiff Bay 8: Techniquest to the Senedd
Cardiff Bus route 8 loops around the old docklands of Cardiff Bay. Ride it from the science centre of Techniquest past the Ocean Building, once the head office of a coal company, and the National Provincial Bank's Portland House to the Senedd and the Wales Millennium Centre.
Techniquest · Ocean Building · Portland House · Senedd · Wales Millennium Centre
Open this tour: Cardiff Bay 8: Techniquest to the Senedd - Walk
Castle Quarter: Romans, Normans and Victorian Arcades
Walk into 2,000 years of Cardiff. See the Roman-walled castle and Burges's Victorian fantasy, the regimental museum, the glass-roofed Victorian arcades, the medieval church that survived Owain Glyndwr, the market where Dic Penderyn was hanged, the Welsh Baptist chapel on The Hayes and the world's oldest record shop, ending under the retractable roof of the national stadium.
Work of William Burges at Cardiff Castle · Cardiff Castle · Firing Line: Cardiff Castle Museum of the Welsh Soldier · Castle Arcade · High Street Arcade · Duke Street Arcade …
Open this tour: Castle Quarter: Romans, Normans and Victorian Arcades - Walk
Cathays Park: Wales's White City
In 1900 the Marquess of Bute sold a park to the city and Cardiff built a civic centre of Portland stone. Stroll past the New Theatre, the Gorsedd Gardens, the national museum with its Monet and Van Gogh, the City Hall, the Baroque courthouse, the Beaux-Arts Glamorgan Building, the Temple of Peace, a modernist university block and a Gothic hall of residence, ending at the university's main building and a Barbara Hepworth bronze.
New Theatre · Hut in Gorsedd Gardens · National Museum Cardiff · City Hall of Cardiff · Cardiff Crown Court · Glamorgan Building …
Open this tour: Cathays Park: Wales's White City - Walk
From Coal to Parliament: Cardiff Bay
Follow the story of the docks that once exported the coal of the valleys, now the home of the Welsh Parliament. Walk from Techniquest and Mount Stuart Square's Coal Exchange past the Wales Millennium Centre, the Water Tower and the Roald Dahl Plass to the red-terracotta Pierhead, the glass-fronted Senedd, the World Harmony Peace Statue and the little white Norwegian church.
Techniquest · Mount Stuart Square · Coal Exchange · Craft in the Bay · Wales Millennium Centre · Water Tower …
Open this tour: From Coal to Parliament: Cardiff Bay - Walk
St Fagans: A Village of Welsh Buildings
In one afternoon, visit Wales across four centuries at the open-air National Museum of History. Start at the Elizabethan manor of St Fagans Castle and walk to a woollen mill, a rescued hilltop chapel, a farmhouse painted red with ox blood, a corn mill, a sixteenth-century hall house, a cockpit, a clogmaker's smithy, a grocery shop, a miners' institute and a medieval church repainted as it looked in 1520.
St Fagans Castle · Esgair Moel Woollen Mill · Pen-Rhiw Unitarian Chapel · St Fagans National Museum of History building · Kennixton Farmhouse · Melin Bompren …
Open this tour: St Fagans: A Village of Welsh Buildings - Walk
Llandaff: A Cathedral Village in the City
Leave the centre for Llandaff, a village that still feels apart. Start at the Victorian Gothic mansion of Insole Court, pass the statue of James Rice Buckley to the ancient cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul and the ruined gatehouse of the Bishop's Palace, and end in the rose garden of Victoria Park.
Insole Court · Statue of James Rice Buckley · Llandaff Cathedral · Bishop's Palace · Former Drinking Fountain canopy in rose garden of Victoria Park
Open this tour: Llandaff: A Cathedral Village in the City - Walk
Chapels, Cathedral and Squares: Cardiff's Living Centre
From the Aneurin Bevan statue at the end of Queen Street, thread through the city centre's faith and public life: the Welsh-language church of St David, the Gothic City United Reformed Church, Ebenezer Chapel and the Catholic cathedral, then the statues of John Batchelor and Betty Campbell, Central Square, the Utilita Arena and Callaghan Square with the Second Marquess of Bute.
Statue of Aneurin Bevan · Queens Arcade · Statue of John Batchelor · Statue of Betty Campbell · Central Square · Callaghan Square …
Open this tour: Chapels, Cathedral and Squares: Cardiff's Living Centre
Walk Cardiff with Neywo
Neywo turns Cardiff into a self-guided audio tour. Stories arrive as you reach the place they belong to, and the route reshapes when you wander off it.
