Return to Cardiff Bay

This weekend I returned to Cardiff, its been a few years since my last trip but the centrepiece was the same: a visit to Cardiff Bay and walking around the bay to Penarth Marina. You can see my photos from the bay here. The weather was better this time than my last visit and the waters looked wonderful.

Southend-on-Sea

There is something so appealing about a British seaside town off-season, all a bit grim and run down, waiting for the return of families and children when the weather picks up. Southend-on-Sea was like that on Saturday, quite a contrast to when I went last Summer when it was very busy, especially on the pier. On this mid-March day the pier was rather desolate and empty, though it also meant it was easier to take photos of the Southend Pier Railway which is probably my favourite railway system of all.

You can see photos of the pier railway here and photos of Southend in general (mostly the pier and one of the railway stations) here.

Leigh-on-Sea

On the second day of my trip to London I headed out to Essex and returned to Southend-on-Sea. We'll cover that in another post but I had the time to also head a little down the coast and visit Leigh-on-Sea. This is a lovely little fishing village and also had an art gallery and cafe that has one of the cars from the Southend Pier Railway in it, so of course the best cafe in the world. Or at least Essex. You can see my Leigh-on-Sea photos here.

Southend-on-Sea

I felt like going to the seaside yesterday and having found out there was a unique railway running on Southend's pier that was the obvious place to go! Southend-on-Sea is a bit of a trek from Birmingham but was well worth going. The Southend Pier Railway is tremendous fun. The pier at Southend is apparently the longest pleasure pier in the world. You can see my photos here.