Newport; Friday, 13 June, 2025

I had a half days leave, so after powering down the laptop I grabbed my already packed bags and headed down to the station to catch the train into London and then get across to Paddington.

The train journey over to Newport was uneventful, which was good considering it was quite a bit longer than it would normally have been as the Severn Tunnels were closed for engineering works, meaning rather than dashing from Swindon to Newport in about 40 minutes it meandered all the way up the English bank of the Severn to Gloucester in 40 minutes, and then took another 40 minutes to wander back the Welsh bank into Newport.

It was a short walk over to the hotel so pretty soon after arriving I’d been able to drop my bag off and was back out in town having a wander.

My first stop was to head up one of the big hills in the city centre up to the Cathedral, which is, of course, located at the top of it. The cathedral resembles a parish church, which is unsurprising as that what it was up until 1949 when it was elevated to a Cathedral, so it’s nowhere near as grand as some other cities cathedrals, but in some ways all the more interesting for it.

Unfortunately, the cathedral itself closes to the public at 5pm (still very much parish church vibes), so I wasn’t able to look around. Instead, I headed back down the hill and over to the banks of the River Usk which runs past the centre of town and had a wander along the bank using the modern Newport City Footbridge, before crossing back over on the early 20th Century Newport Bridge that shadows the railway bridge and between them frame the last surviving remains of the city’s castle.

Just the outer curtain wall and towers that faced the river survive of the castle, and even those are fenced off from being visited, but a small model in front of the fencing gives and idea to how the castle would have looked when it was fully intact, and you can still view the ruins from the opposite side of the fence.

From the castle I wandered back down the other bank of the river, taking in the views before heading back into the city centre to find somewhere for dinner before heading back to the hotel.