South Wales, UK

We had a great meal in Cardiff Bay last night in Signor Valentino. The restaurant is a very good Italian with great food and good Italian service from what appear to be native Italians. Though some of my colleagues had suspicions that some of the waiters originated from Splott

We were lucky to have an excellent evening with a clear, sunny view over the Bay. The restaurant had their big doors open and some of the tables were located out on the veranda. Even on our large table inside we had a great view of the Bay across to Penarth. You couldn’t fault it. One of my friends suggested that it reminded him of being in Monterey. Impressive!

Thoroughly recommended. Make sure you book - tel. no. 029 2048 2007

This weekend we had a lttle trip out to “BlueBell Valley” near Castle-upon-Alun between Wick, Ewenny and St Brides. We have always called it this because of the splendid display of Bluebells at this time of year.

It’s not the sort of place that you’d find in passing - you need to go down some pretty twisty lanes from Ewenny. It’s a really interesting valley. It has a scenic approach from the Ewenny direction followed by a ford. Continuing on the road twists and turns until you pass an old limestone quarry. [Read more →]

An interesting point of view from Kevin McCloud on the Celtic Manor Hotel - Celtic Manor is ‘huge monolith’. I must admit that when I first saw the newly built Celtic Manor resort it towered above the old Celtic Manor hotel and the M4 motorway. As time has gone by I guess that we have become used to it’s brooding presence. When you are within the hotel and it’s environs it feels like a pretty impressive place. Visually, I have to agree with Mr McCloud that it’s not that pretty, but as the venue of the 2010 Ryder Cup it’s impressive.

We had a very nice lunch in Cardiff Bay this week. The restaurant is called Demiro’s. It’s located in the Mermaid Quay complex just across the Oval Basin from the Millennium Centre. We normally grab lunch in Coffee Mania but decided to try somewhere new. I’m normally put off by the bigger restaurants in Cardiff Bay for lunch because of the price, but now most of them do cheaper lunchtime express menus. They’re obviously aimed at the office workers who work in the nearby Welsh Assembly and Atradius.

The food is a mixture of styles based around Mediterranean. We had a good sized meal each and drinks for £15 for two. Service was good without being too attentive.

Thoroughly recommended for lunch.

We visited the British Drift Championships at Llandow Circuit yesterday. I was surprised to see that one of the top drivers is Shane Lynch of Boyzone fame. The photo shows Shane drifting around the first bend. Nice car! It’s a Skyline R33 GTS-T. The photo was taken by Kee.

Quite an interesting review of the Fairy Hill Hotel and Restaurant near Reynoldston on the Gower from late last year.

It’s a couple of years since we last had a meal there and we thought the same, good but not mind-blowing. The restaurant has a huge reputation and I guess that it’s always hard to live up to expectations.

The Foxhunter sounds like it’s worth a visit though.

We found that the beach at nearby Port Eynon is a good place to walk off your meal afterwards!

As someone who comes from South Wales and has a few web-sites about South Wales it seems really strange why the BBC always refers to the area as “south Wales” - without the “s” capitalised.

For an example look at this article. This is obviously a set policy for South Wales because they do it consistently and seem to have done so for a number of years.

However, the policy doesn’t seem consistent with other areas - for example they don’t refer to the “north east” of England but the “North East“.

For me and most people who live here this is a strange thing to do - South Wales is a clear, distinct regional area. Yes we do live in the geographic south of Wales but we also live in South Wales! [Read more →]

The Bwlch is a 1600ft mountain just north of Nantymoel north of Bridgend. It’s quite a climb up even by car but the views are well worth it. This photo show the final climb up as the road zig-zags from Nantymoel. From the top you have great views down into Treorchy in the Rhondda valley. The top of the mountain is popular with model plane soarers.

Well worth a visit by car or even by foot if you’re feeling brave!

This has to be one of my favourite shots of Cardiff Bay. I took it in October 2007 at about 9 in the morning. The Bay is amazingly smooth and the reflections are great. The St David’s Hotel is in the background.

The wooden structures in the foreground are called dolphins and were used to moor ships against when the bay was a full operating port. The Bay is a great place especially when you get good weather like it was on this day.

Siani is a South Wales based blogger with quite a different perspective on South Wales. She seems to do most of her travelling around the area using public transport which definitely makes her blog stand out.

Her recent post on Kidwelly Castle and the farmhouse at St. Fagans makes me realise how lucky we are to have all of these great castles in South Wales. I’ve never been to Kidwelly Castle but it looks pretty cool. Definitely worth a visit!