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This past May I took my mom on a surprise two week trip around England and Wales. I knew very little about Wales before planning the trip. Honestly I couldn’t have even told you that Cardiff was the capital. As a lover of big cities I decided to include Cardiff on our UK itinerary after several stops in smaller towns and areas known for outdoor adventures. When I discovered St Fagans National Museum of History, a free open-air museum, I knew Cardiff would be a perfect place on our itinerary. If you are wondering what to do in Cardiff, make sure to check out St Fagans Museum!

When we arrived at St. Fagans my mom still didn’t know where we were going that day and the entrance to the museum didn’t give her a clue. From the parking lot it looks more like a university or office building.

The world inside the museum is completely different. Open-air museums are one of my favorite types of museums, because they upgrade the usual museum experience of reading information and looking at artifacts. At an open-air museum you feel as if you are actually walking through history. It is as if you traveled back in time to a small village, instead of entering a museum.

St Fagans is no different. There are over 40 historic buildings spread out throughout the park. The buildings include both town and farm-houses, a school, stores, churches, workshops and more. The majority you are able to enter and see how people lived and worked in different time periods. What was neat about the set up at St Fagans was that the farmhouses and cottages were spread out in the countryside and the town buildings like the general store and the candy shop were grouped together just as they would be in an actual town.

We visited on a Saturday when there were a lot of people, but the place is so spread out that it doesn’t feel crowded at all. There are woodsy paths to take to get to some of the buildings. Many of the rural buildings are complete with real sheep, cows and other livestock.

As much as I liked the authentic appeal of the rural buildings, the city girl in me really enjoyed seeing the old fashioned stores!

Another of my favorite spots was Rhyd-y-car Terrace. Two rows of houses were built by Richard Crawshay to provide iron-ore mine workers housing in 1795. Six of the houses were brought to St Fagans and decorated to show how the same house changed over time from 1805 to 1985. It was a great way to see how people’s lives evolved from one time period to the next.

The fairground was also one of my favorite stops. Children are drawn to this area as well. You can pay a little extra to go on the rides and play the games.

Make sure to check what events and workshops are going on when you visit. We saw a clog-maker at work. Another visitor was having custom clogs made for her.

There is a castle at St Fagans too! We didn’t make it to the castle which was originally built in 1590. It shows how big St Fagans museum really is if we didn’t even see the castle! There are also galleries which have more typical museum exhibits showing how people have lived over the years.

Many museums you leave feeling like you don’t really need to visit them again, this wasn’t one of them. As I was writing this post I checked out the website some more to see what else we missed. I was shocked at the number of places we didn’t have enough time to visit. In the near future I could see myself visiting St Fagans again.

Visiting St Fagans National Museum of History

Where

In Cardiff, the capital of Wales,.

Cardiff CF5 6XB, UK

How to Get There

The museum is located on the outskirts of the city. From the center of Cardiff it is about a 20 – 25 minute drive or a 35 – 45 minute bus ride. The number 32A bus stops directly in the museum parking lot. You can get this bus from the Westgate Street KN stop. It comes about twice an hour so plan out your journey time ahead of time. Also make sure to check the schedule (it’s posted at the museum bus stop) when the last bus of the day is back to the center. You can pay for a ticket directly on the bus with cash or a contactless credit card.

If you decide to drive you will need to pay £5 in coins for parking.

Hours

10am – 5pm daily

Tickets

Free!

Toilets

Free in several locations around the museum.

Food

There are four different places to eat lunch around the museum. We ate at Gweithdy, which is inside of a new building further into the museum grounds. While it is in a woodsy area, the building is probably the least representative of the overall environment. Later we took a peek inside of the Gwalia Tea Room, a traditional 1930s tea room on top of the Gwalia stores. If you are looking for more of a historical ambience the tea room or the Castle Buttery inside the castle are your best bets. There is also a restaurant inside the main building, where you enter and exit the complex.

FYI

St Fagans is a big place! If you want to see it all, make sure to reserve a full day. Due to bus timings we were only there for about 3 hours. During that time we saw about half the place and ate a fairly quick lunch. We would have loved to have more time to see everything.

For more museum ideas check out my museum of the month pages. 

Other Things to Do in Cardiff

You can easily spend all day at St Fagans, but if you have another day in Cardiff the Cardiff Story Museum is also a free museum to visit. It is located right in the center of Cardiff. As the name suggests, the museum tells the story of Cardiff through fun, interactive displays. It isn’t a huge museum, but there is a lot of interesting things to learn about people’s lives.

If you are a castle lover you may want to visit Cardiff Castle! The area around the castle and the story museum is full of restaurants, malls and shopping streets.

Where to Stay in Cardiff

Compared to other parts of the UK (other than London) accommodation prices are much higher in Cardiff! Unlike many other cities where you can stay outside of the center and usually pay less, I didn’t find that in Cardiff. There isn’t a whole lot of options for hotels away from the center that seemed any cheaper.

Citrus Hotel Cardiff was my choice due to its location, price, amenities and reviews. We found the room to be clean, modern and with all the space and amenities we needed for a short stay. Breakfast was a buffet that included all the hot breakfast items included in a typical English breakfast and continental choices like fruit, bread and yogurt.

Citrus hotel is located half-way between the Central and Queen Street train stations. It is across the street from the Motorpoint Arena. The best places for shopping, eating and sightseeing in the city are walking distance away. The bus stop to go directly to St Fagan’s on one bus, is an 11 minute walk away.

Our only complaint was that the shower was extremely difficult to figure out. I travel full-time, so I have used a lot of showers recently, but none of them compare to this one. We actually had to get a friendly front-desk worker to teach us how to use it. He subtly made it clear that we weren’t the only people who needed help. A big part of his job seemed to be helping people figure the showers out! After we knew how it worked, it was no problem at all though!

Book the Citrus Hotel Cardiff today!

More Things to Do in Wales & England

Combine all these posts for a two week UK itinerary in England and wales.

• England: Getting to the Lake District
• England’s Lake District (Northern England): 5 Day Itinerary
• Llangollen (Northern Wales): Canoeing over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
• Hay-on-Wye (South Wales): “The Book Town

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