The City of Arcades, Walked in Order

Cardiff's city centre pulled off a trick almost no British city managed: it kept its Victorian shopping streets alive inside the modern ones. Six glass-roofed arcades, built between 1858 and the early twentieth century, run between the Hayes, St Mary Street and Castle Street, and they still house independents rather than chains. The council brands it the City of Arcades, and for once the branding is underselling. Here is the full set, walked south to north in about an hour, longer if you are susceptible to records, cheese or coffee. All of it is under glass, which makes this the definitive Cardiff wet-weather plan.

Start: Royal Arcade (1858)

Begin on the Hayes, the pedestrian spine of the centre. The Royal Arcade is the oldest, opened in 1858, and sets the pattern: a narrow, top-lit corridor of small shopfronts with flats and offices above. The anchor tenant is Wally's Delicatessen at numbers 38 to 46, Cardiff's continental deli since 1947, its long counters stacked with cheese, charcuterie and half of central Europe's confectionery; the Viennese-style Kaffeehaus upstairs does strudel and proper coffee under the roof glass. Walk the arcade's full length to St Mary Street and back if you want both frontages; the Edwardian shop signs repay the double pass.

Morgan Arcade and the world's oldest record shop

Next door, connected at both ends, Morgan Arcade of 1896 is the handsomest of the six, with curved Venetian windows above the shopfronts. At number 27 is the reason record collectors make pilgrimages to Cardiff: Spillers Records, founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller and trading ever since, which makes it, by its own well-defended claim, the oldest record shop in the world. It is no museum: the racks are current, the staff opinions are free, the gig-ticket wall doubles as a listings service for the city's venues, and the t-shirts are Cardiff's favourite souvenir. Buy something; institutions stay institutions by selling records.

Wyndham Arcade and a detour for lunch

Cross the Hayes southward for Wyndham Arcade (1887), the southernmost, running to Mill Lane, a shorter run of cafes and curiosities. From its far end you are two minutes from Cardiff Market's southern entrance on St Mary Street, and the market, though not an arcade, belongs in this walk: an 1891 glass-and-iron hall where fishmongers and Welsh-cake griddles trade downstairs and records, haberdashery and food stalls line the balcony. A warm Welsh cake here costs pennies and is the correct arcade-walk fuel. The market closes on Sundays, as do many arcade shops, so this whole route is best Monday to Saturday.

High Street and Duke Street Arcades

North along High Street, the High Street Arcade (1885) and Duke Street Arcade (1902) join at a right angle, linking High Street to St John Street beside the church. This is the vintage-and-streetwear end of the arcade ecosystem, plus one essential eating stop: New York Deli in Duke Street Arcade, piling up hoagies and bagels for Cardiff since 1990, with opening hours its own website honestly describes as 11am to 3:30pm 'ish', closed Sunday and Monday. Portions are a dare; the arcade benches outside are the dining room.

Finish: Castle Arcade

End opposite the castle gates with the best interior of the lot. Castle Arcade (1887) rises three storeys, with a timber gallery running above the shops and stairs connecting the levels, a piece of Victorian retail theatre that survives nowhere else in Wales. The mix runs from a famous cheese specialist to costume, coffee and craft shops, and the upper gallery views down the arcade are the walk's photographic payoff. Step out of the north end and you are facing Cardiff Castle's walls and the Animal Wall's stone menagerie, which is the correct final note: the whole point of Cardiff's centre is that the castle, the market and these glass streets all sit within ten minutes of one another.

Practicalities

The arcades are public thoroughfares during shop hours and most shops keep ordinary retail time, roughly 9am to 5:30pm Monday to Saturday, with patchy Sunday opening. They are level, dry and pushchair-friendly, though narrow at busy times. The connected set makes an excellent deliberate shortcut network once you learn it: you can cross most of the centre in the dry, which, in a city with Cardiff's rainfall statistics, is not a novelty but infrastructure.