National Museum Cardiff
About
Wales' national museum of art and natural history, in the white Portland-stone civic centre at Cathays Park, and free to enter. The art floors are the quiet star: the Davies sisters' bequest gave Wales one of the finest Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collections in Britain, with Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh hanging a few rooms from Welsh painters like Gwen John. Downstairs, the natural history galleries cover Wales from dinosaurs to a suspended whale skeleton. Open 10am to 5pm daily. It is the best free rainy afternoon in the city, ten minutes' walk from the castle.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓The Davies sisters' Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection
- ✓Welsh art from Gwen John to the present
- ✓Natural history galleries with dinosaurs and a whale skeleton
- ✓Free entry, 10am to 5pm daily
Tips
- →Entry is free but the museum asks visitors to book a free ticket online at busy times.
- →Pair it with a walk through the civic centre's white stone avenues at Cathays Park, one of Britain's finest planned civic quarters.
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
Cardiff Castle
Roman walls, a Norman keep and Burges' gilded Victorian Gothic apartments, in the middle of the shopping streets.
St Fagans National Museum of History
Wales' free open-air history museum: a whole village of re-erected Welsh buildings in the grounds of an Elizabethan manor.
Cardiff Bay & the Wales Millennium Centre
The regenerated docklands: Wales Millennium Centre, the Senedd, the Pierhead and Roald Dahl Plass around a freshwater bay.