Caerdydd - Why is it Disappointing?

It is a city of 300,000

and a capital.

It is my expectations of Cardiff as the latter which make it feel lacking.

Britain's a small country but has a large city for its centre. Yet it isn't the precedent of London which causes Cardiff to seem diminutive. That comes from another small Celtic part of Britain whose devolved government began almost at the same time. It's Edinburgh.

Edinburgh has come to be my template for an ideal capital. What it does best is retain a sense of its country's history and encapsulate its character. The firth and hills make Scotland's landscape as much part of its capital as the crowstepped gables and Baronial architecture. Walking the Mile, you follow the path of monarchs between their palaces. There's an ancient university foundation and other palaces to learning. Although Edinburgh's capital status seems to have only been conferred between 15^th C and the union of the Thrones, its importance long predates that.

This is what Cardiff does not have. It seems that Conwy and Caernarfon have seen more national action than Cardiff. Cardiff was a tiny medieval town, as the early 1600s Speed map shows. Neither is any of that history apparent architecturally now in the Welsh capital. Even though it's not got any domestic medieval buildings on it, Edinburgh's High Street retains the feel of a medieval thoroughfare. But Cardiff has no such equivalent. And for some years, a medieval presence has been an important part of my criteria for a favourite city, a precedent set by Norwich and York.

If Cardiff were a Welsh answer to either of those cities, I would not be disappointed. Although relatively small cities, York and Norwich cram much into their myriad slim streets. Cardiff's perhaps as large as both these put together, but in my opinion Cardiff does not have better facilities except its vast stadium, which is not a pull for anyone not into sport and large scale concerts. Cardiff doesn't have better shops - the demise of its distinctive arcades mean that the medieval lanes of Y/N have no equivalent here in character or content. And they have large chain shops of a similar size to Cardiff. All three - like nearly all UK cities - have only one arts cinema each, and Cardiff has no more theatres than Norwich. Cardiff has fewer independent cinemas than Edinburgh, whose arts offering is further augmented by its festivals.

Edinburgh manages to be grand as well as intimate. Its other chief component - the New Town - was built at a time of which Cardiff has no buildings to show. Cardiff wasn't the intellectual and mercantile centre in the Georgian era that Edinburgh was. Cardiff has a new town, the late 19^th C docks, but these feel like an appendix to a small, dull, drink and sport crazed town centre. Cardiff bay is where Cardiff most feels like a capital, but the original Bute Town heritage such as the Coal Exchange still feels neglected.

Cardiff isn't grand, though a few of its buildings are, so that it doesn't join the UK's other great Victorian and Edwardian cities. Nor does it have the smaller scale grandeur of Newcastle, or the coherence of Bath. Unlike Glasgow, Cardiff doesn't have an own brand of architecture...though William Burgess's contribution is certainly unique. Despite the Pier Head building and the new silvery structures (which also grace Salford Quays and Newcastle), the Cardiff waterline doesn't have the distinction that Liverpool's river view affords

Perhaps some of these comparisons are unfair as Cardiff is a city of only 100 years and a capital of just 50. It is changing rapidly and its new aspects haven't had time to settle into a character yet. The other recent industrial cities have had a 50 year lead - perhaps a half century is suffice? And Edinburgh has had a few centuries. Of course, without wanting to get into politics, Wales (like Ireland) never had its own monarchy, so it lacks the palaces which make Edinburgh, London and other capitals in the world enticing.

The central park with its white palaces to law, civic pride and learning beside a quirky castle is special, and the view up St Mary's Street is reminiscent of approaching Windsor Castle's main gate - a very nationally historic place.

Yet there's one further area which puts Cardiff behind: that it doesn't have life in its suburbs. Edinburgh and Bristol have mini versions of London's villages, meaning that a trip away from the centre is rewarded by a community feel of shops and cafes with a different character. Glasgow's West End can suffice as an alternative to the centre, and some would say that Newcastle's Jesmond and Cambridge's Mill Road have a rival appeal to their city's heart. Liverpool has subdivisions within its centre - the Rope Walks area, the Cavern Quarter. Despite much walking, reading and asking those familiar with Cardiff, I have found little to occupy me out of the centre, other than the Chapter arts centre. The few good cafes seem isolated, rather than in clumps as elsewhere; and the grey stone houses are not as pleasing as the classical terraces of the western suburbs of many cities.

The centre itself is very shopping centre/stadium orientated, and I find that I've explored all of Cardiff too quickly.

Perhaps I should concentrate on the city of 300 classification rather than Cardiff as the capital. Similar sized cities in Britain also have that in between feel or not quite grand, but (although having a substantial history) no longer being ancient and beautiful. Being a capital means that Cardiff has better museums than many comparable towns. Perhaps some of this is charged by my own restlessness with the in between of the medium sized.