National Museum Cardiff, Cardiff (must see)

The National Museum Cardiff was founded in 1905 and it was granted a royal charter in 1907. Previous to this time the museum was a sub-department in the Cardiff Library building. The new building in Cathays Park did not open until 1927.

The museum collections include botany, fine art, applied art, geology and zoology. The archeology department is now in Saint Fagan's National Museum of History. The first floor houses Wales' national art; paintings, drawings, sculpture and ceramics.

It has perhaps the best collection of impressionist paintings in the United Kingdom. Masters like Turner, Monet, Rodin and Van Gogh are represented. There are also classical landscapes and the more contemporary works of Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso.

There are collections for natural history and outer space housed in the Evolution of Wales gallery. Meteorites, moon rocks, mammoths and dinosaurs join Welsh animals, birds and insects on display. A humpback whale and the largest leatherback turtle in the world preside over all.

Since 2011 the Close Discovery Center in the museum offers hands-on exhibits of 75 million objects including fossils, insects and weapons.

The Museum is free but donations will not be refused.