I CANNOT imagine why Cardiff is not yet as popular a city break destination as the likes of Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle for weekenders from this part of the world.

I have recently spent four of the most enjoyable, surprising and eye-opening days in one of the most accessible and rewarding regional capitals in Europe. It even feels like being 'abroad', thanks to the Welsh language signage which is MUCH more prevalent than I expected.

Those of us who live in and around Belfast know how much our city has to offer, if only more people would come to see our world-class attractions for themselves. Well, Cardiff is a bit like that, too. It has a lot more going for it than the millions of sports fans who make fleeting Big Match visits to this sporting city, will ever see or appreciate.

CHARLIE IS MY DARLING: Best show of Summer 2006 - that was my prediction about Garden Show Ireland when I compiled "All the best for 2006" in January Trew's Travels. Organiser Lucy Faulkner was pleased that my prediction came true when the sun shone on a fantastic festival. Highlight for a lot of green-fingered folks like me was meeting up with TV's ultra-friendly gardener Charlie Dimmock. When she pointed out to me that the strong sunshine was causing her forehead to burn, I came to the rescue with my tube of Soltan Factor 30. Alas, nobody was on hand to snap me giving her a facial.

It's ironic that the continued closure of Wembley has meant that Cardiff's magnificent Millenium Stadium - built primarily as the Cathedral to the religion that is Welsh Rugby - has been, since 1999, Britain's most important venue for soccer, attracting 74,000 ticket-holders at a time. And not only for the FA Cup Final and internationals but for a succession of League Playoffs which turned out to be an unexpectedly colourful bonus during my recent visit.

I shared restaurants, hotel lounges and pubs, with fervent supporters from as far away as Grimsby and Cheltenham and as near as Swansea. The Swans were beaten and their fans left in bad-tempered silence in the 213 buses I counted parked along Cardiff Bay.

On BBC Wales Rugby Special the night before, I watched the Swansea Ospreys being been beaten by an unsurpassable Ulster rugby team who won the Celtic League championship trophy as a result. Not a good weekend for Swansea sport, but a great time to be in their rival city of Cardiff!

Watch your language

Bi-lingual signs, posters and publications are everywhere in Caerdydd/Cardiff, due to the fact that it's the seat of the Welsh Assembly, so it's politically correct to have everything duplicated, eg, Lifft/Lift. Tourist brochures have to be in Welsh and English, so they are doubled in size. However, you won't need a phrase-book.

Great Park Plaza Hotel

To begin at the beginning, as the Welsh bard Dylan Thomas used to say in his rare sober moments:

I always emphasise that if you book the right place to stay, then you can enjoy any destination city, whatever the weather. That's why I was delighted when the Park Plaza turned out to be one of the best city centre hotels I've ever experienced in Britain. What a revelation!

This four star 130-room hotel on Greyfriars Road is just minutes away from Cardiff's cultural highlights (the New Theatre is actually next door) and within sight of the main car-free shopping area. It has a 20m stainless steel pool, sauna etc plus a welcoming spa where I had my tootsies pampered.

Rarely have I experienced such high standards of service, thanks in large measure to the excellence of Ali Souini, the genial Guest Relations Manager who arranges everything you could want in a lyrical Moroccan/Welsh accent. This guy should be imported over here to give lessons on hospitality to every receptionist, waiter and bartender before they are let loose on visitors to Northern Ireland.

His affable efficiency has certainly rubbed off on the cosmopolitan crew who made our stay so memorable - including Odeta, Saidie, Linda, Simon, Laura, Florian and Claire. I rarely find more than two staffers to mention by name in my hotel reviews, so when I list EIGHT, it's evidence of being highly impressed.

I was also chuffed by the standard of Welsh fusion cuisine in the airy restaurant where we had good breakfasts plus a couple of excellent dinners, including one comprising artistically-presented local seafood and prime Welsh fillet steaks.

Also, having recently been created from scratch, the Park Plaza's guestrooms incorporate contemporary fabrics and excellent built-in storage that I'm going to get my builder Brian Barrett to copy at home. All in all an exemplary hotel I recommend highly. The website does not do it justice - www.parkplaza.com.

More Welsh rare bites

For good value in Cardiff, don't miss Henry's, the city's Pub of the Year, an bustling gastro-pub serving superb food all day long. You can easily enjoy a pre-match lunch or late dinner and get change from a tenner.

Being on my own one evening, instead of having a full dinner I ordered the platter of Italian antipasti - meats, salamis, cheese-stuffed peppers, olives and salad plus a basket of mixed breads and a big pot of smooth balsamic dip - enough for two or one gorb like me. Maria, my Spanish waitress brought me a free pitcher of iced water so my dinner bill came to under £8.

It was a different story the next night when we took the recommendation of Linda, our Anglo-Thai hotel receptionist and ate in the Thai Edge, in the Brewery Quarter, a newly developed 'village' of ethnic restaurants near the city centre.

For a whacking £42 a head we dined on a spectacularly presented selection of shellfish and salmon, served by a succession of serene Thai waitresses.

Frankly, for that amount of money we could have bought about a stone of lobsters, crabs, sea-bass, tiger prawns and Welsh laverbread (like our Ballycastle dulse) at Aston's, the fantastic fishmongers I marvelled at in historic Cardiff Market that very morning. Alas, there's nothing quite like this daily market back home, and we're the poorer for it.

I also feel an obligation to mention Ba Orient, one of the most stylish wining and dining options in Cardiff Bay renaissance zone. That's because I got a free Trikeshaw ride across town on one of the colourful vehicles it sponsors. The velotaximan told me that Ba is the perfect, ultra-cool place to impress somebody you've taken to Cardiff on a dirty weekend.

Trew's Top Spots

When I was arranging my trip, Destination Cardiff's English-born, Welsh-speaking Head of PR, Ed Townsend, assured me that his city was so compact and flat that no attraction was ever more than 15 minutes away.

Maybe for local Special Olympian Tanni Grey Thompson in her whizzing wheelchair, but hardly for me! Nevertheless, thanks mainly to the hop-on, hop-off Sightseeing Bus, I covered all the Must-Sees and quite a few more.

Wales Millennium Centre dominates the ever-changing skyline on Cardiff Bay. One hundred years ago the Bay was the hub of the world's coal industry but became derelict after King Coal died out. Now this rejuvenated waterfront features a 200 hectare freshwater sailing lake, the five star St David's Hotel and Spa, loads of restaurants, shopping and kid's activities plus the Millennium Centre, not to be confused with the Stadium of similar name.

Behind its stunning façade bearing the world's biggest bi-lingual poem cut from sheet-metal ( that's worth an entry in the Guinness Book of Records alone) the Centre is home to Welsh National Opera, ballet, modern dance and musicals, all with prices to please poor students (this is an important university city) as well as wealthy arts patrons. Take a tour of the backstage and mountainous auditorium, hosted by Arts Sherpas.

Millennium Stadium also has regular tours throughout the day taking you through the players' tunnel onto the uncannily green turf, into the changing rooms, and up to the Royal Box where I sat in the Queen's comfy seat. I was told the secrets of how the pitch is removed for concerts and motocross events and how the seagulls are kept at bay, but I promised to divulge these.

I would have enjoyed the tour more if I hadn't missed the Visitor's Entrance and walked TWO MILES round the entire exterior and was completely knackered on arrival. I did, however, see how tiny the adjacent Cardiff Arms Park is in comparison to the new Stadium.

Cardiff Castle, right in the middle of town, is a vast walled area dating back to Roman times, encompassing a Norman keep and nice gardens. In the late 19th century the fabulously wealthy and mad-keen mediaevalist Marquess of Bute employed the architect William Burges to transform the castle apartments.

Within the Gothic towers he created over-the-top opulent mock-mediaeval interiors which I found absolutely awesome and would share with readers except that photography is banned. A new interpretative centre is being built but this will not be a substitute for the grand tour. Don't miss it!

National Museum and Gallery is the most surprising of Cardiff's treasures, and the only one I feel compelled to re-visit on every future trip. Thanks to two spinster sisters, who bequeathed their world-class art collection, this has 50 of the most important Impressionist paintings outside Paris. The Davies sisters' collection includes Monets, Cézannes, Utrillos etc - plus La Parisienne, possibly the best Renoir portrait in Britain (as seen on the recent TV mini-series The Impressionists).

You never have to queue to see them - and entrance is free. I was so enamoured that I spent an entire morning and there.

Alas I don't have space to describe my excursions to beautiful Duffryn Gardens, the pretty resort of Penarth, the Museum of Welsh Life or Llandaff Cathedral. I have not even mentioned the shopping precincts or the unspoilt Victorian Arcades.

I'm definitely going back!

BY JOHN TREW