Cardiff

We arrived just as the rain stopped, the streets still slick, catching the last of the gray light. Cardiff Castle rose unexpected in the middle of everything ancient stone wrapped in the slow breath of centuries, its clock tower gold-tipped and watching. The kids ran ahead across the green, puddles exploding under their boots, shouting that it looked like something from a movie. They weren’t wrong. The walls were thick with stories. You could feel them. Inside, we wandered through rooms that didn’t quite belong to the same world. Ceilings painted like night skies. Hidden staircases. Carvings so intricate they felt whispered rather than built. One of the kids traced their fingers along the tiled walls and asked, “Did people really live here?” We didn’t answer right away. Because yes and also no. Places like this aren’t just lived in. They’re dreamed into. We took our time through the arcades Victorian, elegant, glass-roofed lanes tucked between stone buildings and modern shops. Music floated from somewhere, maybe a busker down Queen Street, maybe someone humming inside a cafe. We stopped for tea and warm scones, the kind that crumble when you touch them, and the kids sat quiet for once, watching people pass. Outside, a group of teenagers were speaking Welsh, the sounds unfamiliar but soft, like a river running beneath a language we thought we understood. We then followed the Taff down toward the bay. The city thinned as we walked, the river pulling us toward something wider. The Millennium Centre rose like a ship made of copper and song, its letters glowing against the early dark. In these stones horizons sing. We read it out loud, all of us, like a spell. And it felt true. The wind came in stronger by the water, and one of the kids wrapped their scarf tighter, but no one wanted to turn back yet.