South-East Wales
The populous, castle-studded corner around the capital. South-East Wales runs from Cardiff's 2,000-year-old castle and the fairytale turrets of Castell Coch, through moated Caerphilly — Britain's second-largest castle — to the roofless Gothic majesty of Tintern Abbey on its bend of the River Wye.
4 places covered · 1 towns to stay.
🏰 Castles & history
Castles, the capital and the Wye
Cardiff Castle layers 2,000 years into one city-centre site: a Roman wall, a Norman motte, and the lavish Victorian-Gothic interiors William Burges created for the Marquess of Bute. Just north, Burges's fairytale folly of Castell Coch rises out of the woods.
Caerphilly is the giant — the second-largest castle in Britain after Windsor, defended by great rings of water, and famous for a tower that leans further than Pisa's.
East, on a wooded bend of the River Wye, stand the roofless arches of Tintern Abbey, the Cistercian ruin that fired the imaginations of Wordsworth and Turner. It's an easy riverside walk or drive up from Chepstow, and glorious in autumn.
Build a day out here
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