All aboard! I spent the morning on Cardiff’s circular bus route and saw parts of the city I never knew existed
AFTER one-and-a-half years of living in Cardiff, I often think I have got to know the city and its surroundings fairly well.
But, of course, it’s stating the obvious to say there are still large areas of the city I’ve never been to (or even heard of) before after such a relatively short time in the capital, and every now and then I stumble across a new place, like the hidden gem of a park in the middle of the city.
Riding Cardi ff Bus’s Number 1 route, I realised just how much more of the city there is still to discover. The journey takes you on a circular route starting and ending at Cardiff Central Library. The journey took just under two hours, setting off at 9.30am and coming back to finish at 11.22am. In between, you get to see a little bit of everything.
The route skirts around Cardiff’s suburbs, taking you through a range of different communities and corners of quiet, as well as landmark points of the city like the Wales Millennium Centre.
Starting off in the city centre, the bus made its way firstly down to Cardiff Bay, then across the River Taff and into Grangetown. But it wasn’t until we got past Cardiff City Stadium and Canton that I started to feel a little disorientated. We went past the gorgeous Victoria Park (that I’m 99% sure I’d never seen in person before) and I was already eyeing up all the coffee shops I’d never tried out.
As we got further along Cowbridge Road it was like one surprise after another. More and more businesses I’d never heard of were popping up, including a shop called Reptile Cymru, which, although I’m not planning on buying any lizards any time soon, I am now very tempted to go into just for the experience.
The bus then trundled along Western Avenue in Llandaff, and although I’ve heard good things about the leafy suburb, I hadn’t yet had reason to visit myself. It was interesting to see how open the area was and to be reminded of just how green the capital is.
Crossing the Taff again, the scenery was beautiful, and I thought just how lucky we are to have it running through Cardiff, and have so much nature on the doorstep.
From there it was on to the Heath hospital. I’ve always thought that what’s great about Cardiff is the range of communities spread across the city, and I was eyeing up the terraced houses in Gabalfa, a residential area I have also not visited before, and thinking it would be a nice place to live if you wanted to be away from the hustle and bustle.
As the bus drove away from the hospital, more people got off than they did at previous stops (so far, there hadn’t been any stops in particular where there was a large collection of passengers getting off or on).
There felt to me a sense of calm throughout the areas we travelled through, though, typical of a weekday morning, people were very much in the zone, not stopping to chat to other passengers and seemingly keen to get on with their days.
The route back into town was more familiar, as we drove through Cathays and Roath. Leafy Colchester Avenue was another blindspot of mine, and I had no idea just how many major retail stores there were on Newport Road, so I will definitely be paying a visit here soon too.
To get back into town, the number one goes back through Tremofa, Splott and skirts the edge of Adamsdown before ending its journey back in the city centre. There were still lots of people on the bus at this point, and unloaded quickly as they dispersed into The Hayes.
I can’t say I’ve ever sat on a bus for the length of a looping journey around a city before. But I am sure, unless you know Cardiff like the back of your hand, that there will be something you pick up on that you haven’t before if taking on the entire Number 1 route takes your fancy after reading this.