The most interesting thing about Cardiff is the presence of a rift in space and time above the city. If you know what that means, then you’re a geek like me.

I tried to write this without indulging my nerd side, but hey, it’s who I am. You see, while the very beautiful bay area is responsible for some of the tourism, the real reason to visit Cardiff deals with aliens.

The Geeky Preamble

Cardiff is the site where Doctor Who and its spin-offs Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures are filmed. In particular, Torchwood has used Cardiff not only as a filming location, but also the setting for the highly successful BBC series.

For the uninitiated, Torchwood is about a group of alien hunters, led by Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman, who American viewers may know as Patrick Logan on Desperate Housewives). The Torchwood team is based in Cardiff because the rift in space-time is a gateway for all the aliens that show up in the city.

After two rather uneven seasons, the third season was in the form of a 5 night mini-series, Torchwood: Children of Earth. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend checking it out on iTunes or Netflix. It may be sci fi but it’s got some brilliant political and social commentary along with intensely emotional scenes, a result of the actions of the humans and not the aliens.

The fourth season is currently in production, will be based largely in the United States and televised on Starz, so you will be hearing more about the show before long.

Anyway… on to the city.

Contrary to its reputation as a very industrial town, I found Cardiff to be a very enjoyable place, with old and new melding together beautifully. Over the past couple of decades, it’s really come into its own as a destination, largely for its fantastic sports facilities like Millennium Stadium.

For the nightlife side of things, Cardiff has more pubs per square foot than any other place in the UK, which is a serious accomplishment.

The centerpiece of the city’s history is Cardiff Castle. I have to admit I was on castle overload by this point of my trip, so I didn’t go in, but that’s an error I’ll rectify next year when I spend more time in Wales.

The real highlight of the city for most tourists, though, is Cardiff Bay. Shopping, eating and playing on the coast draws visitors from throughout Britain.

The Doctor Who Exhibition

In addition to the filming locations around the city, there’s a Doctor Who Exhibition located in Cardiff. The attraction isn’t particularly well set up (photos of some of the key props and costumes are nearly impossible because of the lighting and layout). But for a Doctor Who fan, the opportunity to see the real deal in costumes and alien make-up was well worth the admission fee.

With an audience of geeks and the fervent nature of fandom, there is a lot more that could be done to make Cardiff a tourist hub, including the highly profitable sci fi convention business.

Some Key Locations

Cardiff Bay, The Millennium Centre and Roald Dahl Plaas – known to geeks as the location of Torchwood headquarters.

The front of the Water Tower is the location of a secret lift to get into (and out of) the Torchwood base.

And now, the full on nerd:

To truly indulge the nerds, there are sights all over town that series fans will recognize. I include a couple of key ones here, but there’s an astonishingly comprehensive list of locations on this site.

The finale of the first season of the “new” Doctor who (launched in 2005) was an episode called “Bad Wolf.” In the episode, Rose Tyler sees “Bad Wolf” written in graffiti on a wall outside her home. Even now, 5 years later, that graffiti is still lightly visible on the wall.

The third season finale of Doctor Who featured The Doctor’s key nemesis, The Master. As the Doctor, his companion Martha and Jack Harkness (cross-over time) are on the run, they duck into this tunnel.

One of the best episodes of Doctor Who is titled “Blink.” It is a wonderfully scripted piece of television that blends some very frightening scenes with humor and wibbly-wobbly time travel elements. The building below was the police station from that episode.

Spoiler alert: Don’t read ahead if you haven’t seen Children of Earth.

One final pic related to Torchwood.

One of the coolest things we saw in Cardiff was absolutely unexpected. At the point where the Torchwod Hub entrance is supposed to be located, there is actually just a blank wall by the harbor. Well, it USED to be blank. Now it’s become a shrine to Ianto Jones, who was killed in the Torchwood mini-series. Visitors to Cardiff have continued to leave notes, flowers, photos and cards in the wake of the character’s “death” over a year ago.

Virtually every location in Cardiff has been used in an episode of one of the three shows. Some are extremely recognizable, some are just backgrounds. Having a car would have been ideal to get to some locations that were a bit further afield than we could easily reach.

But I’m pleased to add Cardiff to the list of places I’ve visited where I would be happy to live and work.

Hmmm… BBC, I may have a business proposal for you.

Related articles

• Torchwood’s coming back at last – and this time, it’s an international affair! [Jubilation] (io9.com)