Wanderings and Ramblings : A Doctor Who Walking Tour--Cardiff

Most episodes of Doctor Who are filmed in and around Cardiff (even though many of those are set in London, go figure!), which is why the Doctor Who Experience is located there. A company called Brit Movie Tours also offers tours of the city which visit filming locations--so taking one seemed like a good activity for our two young Whovians. The bus tour was not happening at all while we were there, but there was a walking tour offered for Friday, so we prebooked that for our final full day in Wales. The bus tour gets rave reviews on Tripadvisor and the walking tour is too new to have reviews, but we figured it would be of equally high quality and were really excited for the tour.

We enjoyed a slow morning and an early lunch at the house before driving to Cardiff to meet up at the Millenium Center for the tour--we were told to go into the tour meeting spot and look for someone with a sonic screwdriver.

It was easy to find the guide and once we arrived everyone in our small group (two other families of four, both with elementary aged boys) and one teen boy with his dad, as well as the four of us, set off.

The tour begins by walking around the Millenium center and the guide showed several photos from different episodes showing how that same building was used in many episodes of the show, sometimes as a hospital.

From there, we headed out to the Mermaid Quay area. It is a pretty little boardwalk spot that we enjoyed seeing just in its own rights.

Our little tour group of 14

There is what was once an impromptu display and is now permanent that is a "memorial" to a character from Torchwood (a Doctor Who spin-off) who died within the series (there is a sign explaing to us non fans that no real person passed away).

We were also allowed to go in in groups of four for a photo op in the bathroom doorway of a diner, where a scene was filmed a few years ago. It was hard for anyone, even the three teens who all seem to knwo the show relal well, to figure out exactly what photo op was being talked about, and the diner was packed and it felt akward to stand in the bathroom doorway, but also akward to NOT go take photos when clearly the guide wanted us to. (here is the diner--the photo of someone leaning on the doorway is on Rio'S camera I am afraid):

At this point we were about 15 minutes into the tour and it was obvious that the guide was not warming up to anyone, and had the most flat and uniteresting delivery imagineable. Not being a fan of the show, I stopped forcing myself to try to listen to the monotonous tones and just took photos of the interesting parts of Cardiff as we went.

We just thought this was a funny name for a club of some kind

About the time I was giving up on paying attention (it was WORK, even for the kids who love the show) we were being shown the enternace to the famous bar that looks like a Police Box (for the unintiated, a Police box is the time machine/space ship of the show). Sadly, all we could see was a glimpse of blue behind a boarded up area--not a single person in our group could undersatnd the explanation of why it is all borded up. We had no probem with an accent or underatanding the words spoken, but the story just made no sense and we could not even follow it- Oh well, you can see the bit of blue roof to the enty in the photo:

As we continuted on, our guide crossed multiple streets without waiting for the light to change and having a walk signal (yes, this tour was a disaster!) I was stunned the first time it happened, especially as the four younger boys had been followingclose to him while parents lagged behind and of course would assume they could cross with the guide and were not checking the lights themselves (and two were from either the US or Canada, meaning if they thought to look for cars they would probably be looking the wrong way).

The tour just got worse as it droned on and as we ended up at three seperate locations where we stood outside and were told that normally we would be going in and seeing interesting things but that the tour had been scheduled for a holiday and we could not go in (WHY was the only tour in a month scheduled for a day that excluded seeing so much??). Both of the families with younger kids dropped out by the half way mark.

We DID get to go in a pretty old theatre and the museum (always free, thankfully open that day) and the city is intersting. We enjoyed seeing the town--but I would not recomend taking a tour; just see it on your own for less money and it will probably be more intersting.

My favourite things in town were the ones we saw after the tour (and Mermaid Quay). We popped into the castle entry area, which was impressive (we did not pay the 12 pound each for entry past the ticket office):

and LOVED the little aracades all around in that city center area:

Walking back towards the bay, we went along the river front. We thought these mosaics of cultural stereotypes on the ground near the stadium were funny (too bad there wasn't one for Germany).