TARDIS tourism

I'm in Cardiff, a dynamic city full of exciting sights that is only on my itinerary because I am ridiculously nerdy. Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood are filmed here, and so I came. If television is to be believed, Cardiff is absolutely crawling with aliens. Mostly they are concealing themselves well, with the glaring example of Millenium Stadium, a building that is clearly a giant alien spaceship despite its thin disguise of a rugby/football/etc stadium.

Cardiff has some very old things, like a splendid Norman castle built on Roman ruins and some excelent medieval churches, but it also has a lot of fairly new construction. The city is full of skyscrapers of posh flats. I'm wondering if there is some sort of ordinance against plain, flat roofs on these tall buildings, because they all seem to have jauntily sloped roofs or some sort of strange roof topper (possibly more alien spaceships?) Possibly these are all installed to offer challenges to Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, who is fond of standing on roofs. I've managed two roofs myself. The belltower at St. John's church was having a special open to climbing day, so I went up a steep spiral staircase to a great view. I even got to ring one of the bells! I also climbed to the top of the castle keep. The castle was having some sort of Armed Forces day gala when I was there, featuring lots of marching soliders in a mix of historic and contemporary uniforms, plus one marching goat, evidently the local regiment's mascot.

I've done a lot of walking, gotten a little sunburned, eaten some excellent Indian food, gotten caught in an annoying crowd of people exiting a motorcycle rally that were mixing with the saturday night annoying crowds of drunk people, taken the backstage tour at the Millenium Center (the spiffy new arts center whose front can be seen on Torchwood and Doctor Who), seen some really cool ancient artefacts in the museum, and avoided the temptation to stroke the costumes in the Doctor Who exhibition. (Barely...I'm normally a model museum-goer, but it took a lot of will power to keep my hands to myself). It's been great...my only wish was other nerds with me so I could have someone to hear my exclamations of 'the invisible lift is RIGHT HERE!'

Let me just state my love for the fact that there is an actual locked door with the information center symbol and newspaper clippings, including the fake one about the Slitheen mayor trying to put a nuclear power station in Cardiff, just where the Torchwood entrance should be. It's not a set that is taken down when they're done filming; it's a real door. Possibly with a real Hub beneath? One can hope.

The next post will be more comprehensible to those who don't share my nerddom. Possibly.