Cardiff Bay

Lonely Planet review

Since 1987 the area surrounding the docks has been completely redeveloped as Cardiff Bay, a massive commercial centre filled with gleaming new shopping centres, hotels, restaurants and government buildings. A state-of-the-art tidal barrage has turned the once stinking mudflats into a vast freshwater lake, alive with yacht races on summer weekends.

In the 1880s Cardiff grew from one of the smallest towns in Wales to the largest, thriving on the money made by the rapidly expanding coal-export industry. In 1913 more than 13 million tonnes were exported from Cardiff docks, but after WWII demand slumped. The docklands deteriorated into a wasteland of empty basins, cut off from the city by the railway embankment. The bay outside the docks - which has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world (more than 12m between high and low water) - was ringed for up to 14 hours a day by smelly, sewage-stained mudflats. The nearby residential area of Butetown became a neglected slum.

Thanks to its transformation, on Sundays from mid-June to September there are street performers and various shows around Cardiff Bay. The Cardiff Harbour Festival takes place on the August Bank Holiday weekend, with watery action in the bay itself as well as live music and fireworks.

Cardiff Bay Visitor Centre, housed in an oval tubular structure on the eastern side of the harbour known as the Tube, has an immense model of Cardiff Bay and stocks maps and booklets on the area and its history.