Where to walk and eat in Fforest Fawr, Cardiff

Castell Coch and its tickets

Castell Coch (above Tongwynlais) is the Victorian Gothic fantasy William Burges built for the 3rd Marquess of Bute on a 13th-century ruin. Cadw runs it. The interior capacity is limited, so book online before you travel. Online tickets also take 5% off.

Adult entry is £10.40, junior and student £7.20, and a family ticket £33.30. Under-5s go free. Large parties should email [email protected] ahead of the visit.

Inside, the Octagon Drawing Room sits under a painted vaulted dome of birds and butterflies, and Lady Bute's bedroom under a domed Moorish ceiling. The stairs are steep spirals and the doorways are low. In storms the castle can shut because of falling branches.

The forest paths start from the castle car park. See the castle first, then climb.

The sculpture trail and Sir Henry's Trail

Fforest Fawr (the forest car park above the castle) is open-access woodland with no booking and no door policy. Parking at the top is free, and picnic tables sit beside the bays. Overnight parking is not allowed.

The sculpture loop is 1.3 miles and easy, on a steep mixed-woodland hillside where the carvings emerge from mossy trunks. Sir Henry's Trail is 2.4 miles and links the forest down to the castle, which makes one walk of the two sights. Natural Resources Wales lists all four waymarked routes as open. Sections are sometimes diverted for maintenance, so read the signs at the junctions.

In spring the woodland floor goes to bluebells and wild garlic. A viewpoint at the top of the hill opens over the Taff.

If you only have an hour, do the 1.3-mile loop from the forest car park and leave the trail down to the castle for another visit. If you want the castle and the woodland in one go, start at the castle, take Sir Henry's Trail up, and walk the sculpture loop at the top.

Three Bears Cave

Three Bears Cave (on a waymarked path in Fforest Fawr), also called the Three Arches, is three squat stone-arched mine mouths cut into a fern-covered hillside. They are surviving adits of the Pentyrch ironworks, abandoned in 1870. The BBC filmed Merlin here.

The rock drips, and woodland closes in around the dark openings. You view from behind a timber safety fence. The caves are unsafe to enter.

It is free and sits directly on the path. Groups spread out along the fence without trouble.

Garth Mountain from Gwaelod-y-Garth

Garth Mountain (Mynydd y Garth, above Gwaelod-y-Garth) is 307m of bare grassy whaleback with Bronze Age round barrows and a trig point on top. The burial mounds are 5,000 years old. This is the hill from The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain.

The standard ascent from Gwaelod-y-Garth takes 45 minutes. The ground is open common land, free to walk, with no limits on when you go.

The view runs 360°, over Cardiff to the Severn Estuary and north to the Brecon Beacons. Paragliders use the ridge and sheep crop the turf.

The summit is exposed. In low cloud you will see nothing. Skip it and walk the woodland instead.

The thermal spring in Taff's Well Park

Taff's Well Thermal Spring (Taff's Well Park) is Wales's only thermal spring, at 21.6°C. A small brick-and-stone well house stands on the riverbank in a flat municipal park, the Taff behind it and the Garth rising steeply above. The water sits faintly warm in a brick-lined shaft 4m deep.

Victorians came here to bathe. The shaft is now capped and sealed, and the spring heats the village primary school. You look at it, and that is the whole stop.

The park is free and open with no booking. The car park and footpaths were resurfaced in 2025, and the flat ground gives a group somewhere to stand and wait.

Coed y Bedw at Pentyrch

Coed y Bedw Nature Reserve (over the ridge at Pentyrch) is 41 acres of ancient broadleaf woodland on a steep stream-cut slope, an SSSI run by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales. A brook tumbles through mossy boulders. Dog's mercury grows alongside early purple orchids where limestone meets acid soil.

The paths are narrow and muddy. The reserve has no facilities and no parking to speak of, so arrive on foot from the village.

Come here when the sculpture trail is busy.

Eating in Tongwynlais

The Lewis Arms (corner of Merthyr Road and Mill Road, Tongwynlais) is the village pub at the foot of the castle road, white-painted with hanging baskets and a small walled beer garden under the wooded castle hill. Bikes get propped outside. Walkers, cyclists and dogs all come in off the hill, and the tables are large.

Mains run £13 to £19. The Sunday roast is what people come back for, and Sunday lunch needs booking ahead. Live music and an open mic run every other Wednesday.

Kerbside Cafe (Tongwynlais village hall grounds) is a family-run outdoor servery pitched where the Taff Trail passes, with picnic benches and parasols on tarmac. Mugs of tea and loaded breakfast hash come through a hatch.

Breakfast and sandwiches are £5 to £10, the cheapest proper feed after the forest loop. No bookings, walk up. It closes Monday and Tuesday and shuts by early afternoon. Time the walk around that, and eat before you climb rather than after.

Ton Thai Street Food Cafe (Merthyr Road, Tongwynlais) is a tiny shopfront with a handful of close-packed tables, Thai lanterns and street-food signage, woks visible behind the counter. Curries and noodle dishes are £10 to £14. Order the Massaman or the tom yum.

Seating is limited and walk-ins routinely get turned away. Reserve, and note that groups are taken only with an advance booking. The takeaway street box is the fallback when the tables have gone.

Pubs at Gwaelod-y-Garth and Morganstown

The Gwaelod y Garth Inn (Gwaelod-y-Garth, at the base of the Garth ascent) is a stone hillside inn with real ale hand pumps along a dark wood bar, a dog by the fire and an intimate upstairs dining room above the valley. The cooking is the best within walking distance of the forest.

Mains are £17 to £25, and three rooms take B&B guests. Parties of six or more pay a £10 per head deposit on booking, with 24-hour cancellation terms. Dogs are allowed in the bar. It closes Monday and Tuesday, which rules it out as the reward at the top of a Monday walk.

Ty Nant Inn (Morganstown, half a mile down the valley) is a long low whitewashed cottage pub with a stream beside it, beams and a log burner inside, a big car park and garden tables under trees. The Taff Trail passes the door, and dog walkers come in off it.

Mains are £13 to £20. The vegetarian and vegan choice is good. Book a table online.

Taff's Well tables

Taff's Well Inn (Taff's Well) is a plain stone-fronted roadside pub whose rear garden of decking and picket fencing looks straight out over the thermal-spring park and the river. New owners have smartened that garden up, and in good weather it is the reason to stop after the well house.

Walk in, with no door policy to work around. Drinks and pub plates run £10 to £16. The food is lighter here. Treat it as a drink.

The Spice Ambassador (a quiet parade in Taff's Well) is a small family-run Indian and Bangladeshi kitchen, dark linen-set tables under warm low lighting, karahi dishes arriving at the table sizzling. Mains are £10 to £16.

It is the dinner to aim for once the pub kitchens stop serving. The dining room is modest, so reserve ahead.

Beds at Coryton

Village Hotel Cardiff (Coryton, a mile and a half south) is a large modern low-rise block off a leafy suburban road, with a 25m heated indoor pool, a Starbucks counter in the lobby and a pub-and-grill with big screens. The rooms are plain.

Doubles run £80 to £140 and parking on site is free. The hotel takes blocks of rooms and holds meeting and event space, with family swim sessions in the pool. M4 J32 and Coryton station are on the doorstep. One base covers the forest and the city centre.

Closed days and booking

Kerbside Cafe and The Gwaelod y Garth Inn both close Monday and Tuesday, and Castell Coch can shut in storms. Book the castle online, reserve Ton Thai and The Spice Ambassador, and book the Lewis Arms for Sunday lunch.

See the Cardiff guide and the Cardiff hotel search.