Greetings to all fellow X Marks the Scot colleagues.

I just returned from a long musical weekend visit to Derek and Elaine in Cardiff, Wales, and thought I would give a little travelogue and some pictures. I was lucky enough to dodge the worst of the travel problems, but many people in England and Europe in general have not been so luck.
So here we go.

Took off from Memmingen, Germany, on 16 Dec on Ryanair for London Stanstead Airport (about an hour by train north of London). Arrived about 3pm and by 5:30 pm was a Paddington Station awaiting a train to Cardiff. First Problem: Trains were being cancelled because of an electrical problem affecting the train signals. Finally about 8:30pm they announced a train and about 3 loads of people stuffed themselves onto one train. So tightly packed that half of us had to breath out while the other half breathed in.

Arrived in Cardiff around 11pm and walked a quarter mile through 4 inches of new snow to the Hostel where I had booked a bed for 4 nights. Luckily I was the only one in the room the first two nights so I slept well.



Friday morning I walked to the center of town (about 10 minutes), going past Cardiff Castle and found McDonald’s for breakfast. Weather was snowy but not too cold. Cardiff has a great indoor shopping mall over two blocks long right in the center of town. Beautifully decorated. Also had small huts set up in the streets outside selling handcrafts and foods.





About 10:30 am I was back at Cardiff Castle. No crowds!. First shot is of the Norman Keep when I went into the Visitor Center when it was snowing hard. Second is when I came out half and hour later, brilliant blue sky!



Wandered around the town then napped until it was time to catch a bus out to where Derek and Elaine host their monthly Folk Club show. Unfortunately, the new snow kept many people away, but the band played, and I talked to the dozen or so that showed up. Very nice reception for this old visitor.



Part Two in a separate message.