Roald Dahl Plass
Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff, Wales, is named after everyone’s favourite Children’s author Roald Dahl who was born here in the Capital, and the word “plass”, meaning “plaza”, is a nod to his parent’s Norwegian origins.
If you’re a fan of Doctor Who or the Torchwood spin-off, then you’ll immediately recognise this as being the location of a spatio-temporal rift in time1.
At the north end of the plaza stands a 21m tall water fountain (which hides the entrance to the secret Torchwood underground cave).
The south-east of the Plaza is home to the National Assembly for Wales, the Senedd. We looked for the Senedd before while touring the United Kingdom’s devolved assemblies, but it wasn’t finished then.
At the north-east of the square is the Wales Millennium Centre, a hall for performing arts. The front of the building has an enormous Welsh poem written across its entire face using the medium of windows. You can read the windows in Microsoft’s bird’s eye view imagery.
There’s more information on Roald Dahl Plass and Cardiff Bay on Wikipedia.
Thanks to AndrewAnorak, Jam, braddie, and Andrew Shackson.
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If you didn’t watch either of these shows then I apologise for the gibberish. ↩
Doctor Who fans should also pay a visit to the adjacent Red Dragon centre, where there is a big exhibition:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
There is also a good all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant there!
If you look opposite the fountain you’ll see another D shaped space – I’m still waiting for them to get around to building the second fountain in that space. My sense of symmetry is upset every time I visit the Oval Basin (the name that many Cardiffians still refer to the place by).
@Phillip: So there is! Do you know what the hold up is?
The D on the opposite side allows you to see one of the many underground culverts underneath the city that carry small streams out to the bay. It still flows into the oval basin, but that’s not obvious now as the wooden deck covers the filled-in dock.
And to be really topical, to one side of the square is the Eli Jenkins, a pub frequented by Welsh Ministers:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
On Wednesday, Welsh culture minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas walked into this pub with a lit cigar, the idiot. (For the benefit of international readers, smoking’s illegal in indoor public places across the UK.) Earlier this month, the same minster announced the wrong winner of a £10,000 literature prize at an awards ceremony! So this evening, it was time for him to resign!
Thanks for references Doctor Who and Torchwood which are two of my favorite shows and thanks for the interesting items!