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A new five-star hotel also in the Bay area. There are 132 guest bedrooms, all with private balconies and views across the bay, and 20 suites. Guests also have full use of the St David's marine spa, which claims to be the first health facility and hydrotherapy spa in Wales. Rooms from £260 - £550.
St David's Hotel, Havannah Street, Cardiff 02920 454045 www.thestdavidshotel.com/
A big fuss has been made about Cardiff’s first boutique hotel, Jolyon’s. The restored Georgian townhouse has six lavishly furnished bedrooms, with king-sized beds, wi-fi facilities, free-to-view television, tea, coffee and cafeteria, and views of Cardiff Bay.
Jolyon's, 5 Bute Crescent, Cardiff 02920 488 775 www.jolyons.co.uk/
The best place to watch the world go by is down at Cardiff Bay, which has witnessed so much pass by itself. Originally the site of the docks which exported Welsh coal worldwide, by the 1980s Tiger Bay was a mass of derelict land and abandoned buildings. The regeneration began with the controversial barrage which flooded the bay, and now the area houses a cinema complex, restaurants, piers, clubs, bars, museums, designer apartment complexes, the Welsh assembly and the Wales Millennium Centre, the home of Welsh opera and seven other arts and culture organisations. The coffee shops and bars which now line the water’s edge at Mermaid Quay are the perfect place to watch it all come alive - by day or night.
There’s no landmark in Cardiff which can give you a view of the city in the way that the London Eye or the Eiffel tower would, although the Garth and Wenault mountains are worth venturing out to for a view of the city from a distance. But if you want a window into the Welsh nation, go to Cardiff when there’s an international rugby fixture on. For the Welsh, rugby is the expression of a nation and it’s an experience you will never forget. The sight of 75,000 people - mostly wearing red - in such a huge stadium is itself a spectacle, and the singing will make your hair stand on end.
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