St. Fagans!

After our wonderful trip to Big Pit, Angela and I drove about an hour south to the west side of Cardiff and arrived at St. Fagans National History Museum.  I know you are probably thinking, "yeah yeah, I've been to history museums before," but I bet you haven't been to one like this... at least I know I hadn't.

Old farm house with thatched roof.

At St. Fagans they have a collection of over forty old buildings (many centuries old) from around the country that they have taken apart brick by brick, labeling each one, and then transported them to St. Fagans and rebuilt them so that they are exactly as they were.  Through a little research I found that St. Fagans was voted one of the UK's top ten FREE attractions by TripAdvisor!

There is a pretty good video at the bottom of this page, plus more information about it.

A long house from 1734 which housed both animals and people!

A couple of other things I liked about St. Fagans was that there were signs with information about each building AND there were also employees who were very knowledgeable and willing to answer any questions we had.  They also had some of the buildings actually functioning as their intended purpose with artisans working in them.  A few I remember seeing were the bakery, the blacksmith, the cobbler, and the general store (see below).

An old general store where we got some delicious Italian ice cream for a snack :)

You could easily spend a whole day here.  We just had the afternoon, and saw a lot, but did not have time for everything.  For example, the museum is actually located on the grounds of a late 16th century manor house, and we did not have time to see any of that.  On a nice day, like the one we had, it would be wonderful to bring a picnic, or get a few things at the bakery and general store, and enjoy the gardens!

Here you can see more about the manor home and gardens.

A round house.

Overall, a GREAT day!  Thanks again to Angela for the wonderful experience.  I highly recommend it!

Things that are more difficult than they should be:

• Counting money.  When you don't know which coins are which, it is quite difficult to count out money, especially without dumping all of your change on the counter or just handing it all to the cashier and asking them to do it.