4 Best Sights in Wales

This splendid neoclassical museum in Cardiff's civic center houses the National Museum of Art and the National Museum of Natural History. It is renowned for its exquisite collection of impressionist and modern art, featuring many of the art world's major players as well as one of the world's best collections of British silverware. This is also the main venue of the biennial Artes Mundi, the United Kingdom's largest contemporary arts prize. The Evolution of Wales gallery, showing the country's history from the Big Bang onward, uses inventive robotics and audiovisual effects. Kids, however, will be more interested in the dinosaurs and the enormous, 9-meter (29-foot) skeleton of a humpback whale that washed ashore near Cardiff in 1982.

Close to the castle, this small but informative museum recalls the town's maritime history and its growth as a fashionable resort. Kids will appreciate the section on Tenby's role in the golden age of piracy. Two art galleries feature works by local artists, including Gwen and Augustus John.

In the colonnaded Shire Hall, built in 1842, this museum stages top-quality exhibitions by leading Welsh artists and holds artifacts of Welsh rural life, including a large collection of carved love spoons. Be sure to check out the perfectly preserved 19th-century law court. Y Gaer is also now a community center for the town and houses its library.