Castle Arcade - Cardiff

As I said in yesterday's blip .. one of the great things about have a couple of days break in Cardiff is you explore bit your don't normally visit.

We wanted to try a couple of new coffee shops, independent ones rather than the corporate affairs of Costa and Starbucks. Yesterday we popped in Torres which is by Cardiff Castle.

Today we wandered back up the castle and found Coffee Barker in Castle Arcade. I had a wonderful Mocha, and Dawn had a really nice smooth latte. We discovered whilst we were sat there that they did milkshakes in proper old school milk bottles, something I will have to go and back and try on another occasion.

We spent the whole day wandering the shops today, which is not really like us, but it was great fun. We went back to the hotel for a quick swim, before heading back into to town and a meal in the fantastic Madeiran Restaurant.

A lot of people would have hated where we were sat. We were put by the kitchen ... it was bedlam. The noise was deafening, but the atmosphere electric. I was fascinated by the madness that was a busy kitchen. Tempers seemed to flare almost as often as the meals were being flambéed. We had a laugh with the chefs as we were sat there.

The meal was awesome.

We also discovered that one of our old Barn friends, Cyril Royer, is now a chef in the hotel, so we caught up with him too.

Another great day .. shame we have to go home tomorrow.