Riverside Market sets out more than 30 stalls along Fitzhamon Embankment every Sunday from 10:00 to 14:00, the white gazebos in a line under bare plane trees with the River Taff on one side. Plates cost £3 to £8. By early afternoon the embankment is clear again.
Sunday on Fitzhamon Embankment
Riverside Market (Fitzhamon Embankment) has traded since 1998 and opens Sundays only, 10:00 to 14:00. Entry is free. More than 30 traders set up, among them Pettigrew Bakeries and Paul's Organic Veg, with produce at £2 to £10. Mama La La's cooks Sichuan dumplings and The Artisan brings Portuguese pastries. Arrive before 11:00. The embankment path is narrow and clogs up once the stalls are busy.
The silver bowl roof and floodlight masts of the Principality Stadium rise directly behind the stalls, on the far bank. The market is the main reason to come to Riverside, and it is over by early afternoon.
Fitzhamon Embankment and the Millennium Riverwalk (Riverside) is a boarded timber walkway along the west bank of the Taff, running half a mile from Cardiff Central's rail bridge up to Cowbridge Road East. Coloured national-flag mosaics are set flush into the decking, and public sculpture stands along the embankment. The head-on view of the stadium from here costs nothing, with the sheer concrete flank of its West Stand across the water. The stadium is a two-minute walk away over the river. It is not in Riverside.
The walkway doubles as the Riverside stretch of the Taff Trail, and walking and cycling groups use it constantly. It is free and open at all hours. If you have an afternoon in Riverside rather than a morning, this is what is left.
Tudor Street
Sri Dasmesh Singh Sabha Gurdwara (97–103 Tudor Street) flies a saffron Nishan Sahib from a tall pole outside a run of knocked-through red-brick Victorian terrace frontages. The Bhatra Sikh centre is where Riverside's South Asian community is most visible. Sunday diwan runs 10:00 to 12:30 and free langar follows at 13:00, up the road from the market.
Entry is free and visitors of any faith are welcome; a donation is the usual thing. Cover your head, remove your shoes and wash your hands before you go into the prayer hall. Shoe racks sit inside the door. Phone 029 2022 4806 before you arrive if you are coming as a group.
Eastern Chinese Supermarket (26 Tudor Street) is a narrow shopfront with tight aisles of sauce bottles, noodle packets and stacked crockery, and trays of fresh Asian greens and herbs by the door. Tudor Street is a strip of Chinese, halal and Indian food shops, and that strip is why Cardiff cooks come to Riverside. The supermarket is small and prices are low.
It closes Sundays, which is the one day the market trades. Plan two trips to Riverside if you want both.
Madhav (59 Lower Cathedral Road) cooks home-made Gujarati and Maharashtrian vegetarian street food in a tiny kitchen at the back of an Indian grocery. Dosas, samosas and thalis arrive on stainless-steel trays. Most dishes run £7 to £13, and there are vegan and gluten-free options. It opens 09:00 to 21:00 daily. There are a handful of tables; four people is the practical limit on a party, and a larger group should take the food away and eat it on the embankment.
Cardiff Bridge and Clare Gardens
Cardiff Bridge, Pont Caerdydd, carries four low elliptical concrete arches on stone piers, with a balustraded parapet and bronze torch-holding obelisks standing on each pier. It was rebuilt in 1930 to 1931, on a crossing used since Roman times. The Grade II listing came in 2002, for early reinforced-concrete engineering.
This is how most people walk into Riverside. Cardiff Castle's walls close the view at the eastern end, and the castle and Bute Park begin the moment you step off. Pavements are wide on both sides and there is no restriction on walking it.
Clare Gardens (Riverside) is a railed garden in a terraced residential square, rebuilt with raised community growing beds, an outdoor concrete table-tennis table and a stone chess table. Benches and outdoor gym equipment fill the rest of it. The space had a bad reputation and the rebuild turned it round. It is free, open, and the quickest way to see how Riverside lives day to day.
Sophia Gardens and the green north end
Sophia Gardens (north Riverside) was laid out in 1854 on old Plasturton farmland and named after the Marchioness of Bute. Long formal avenues of mature limes and planes cross flat riverside parkland, with gravel paths beside the Taff and the white tented roofline of the cricket ground showing through the trees. It was the first home ground of Cardiff City FC, from the years when the club was called Riverside AFC.
The park is unenclosed, free and open at all hours, with room for picnics, and it links straight onto Pontcanna Fields. Walk north through it and you are at the cycle hire and the campsite.
The Sophia Gardens cricket ground is a 16,000-seat riverside bowl with a white fabric sail canopy over one stand and a tall glass-fronted media and pavilion block, the Taff running directly behind the boundary. Glamorgan have played here since 1967 and it has been a Test venue since 2009. The ground is plain Sophia Gardens in 2026, so ignore the dead SSE SWALEC sponsor name on older signage and listings.
A county day costs £18 to £30, which makes it cheap for a crowd, and group and hospitality bookings are standard. Internationals and The Hundred cost considerably more. No cricket is played from October to March. Check the fixtures before you build a day around it.
Pedal Power (Pontcanna, CF11 9LB) lines up adapted trikes, handcycles, tandems and low go-karts outside a low single-storey cabin with an accessible café, the flat green of Pontcanna Fields behind. It is the largest accessible cycle fleet in Wales. Hire costs £10 to £20 an hour depending on the cycle. A hoist is on site and the staff are trained in moving and handling. Ride the Taff Trail straight back down Fitzhamon Embankment.
Eating and drinking by the water
On The River (Despenser Street) is the one proper drinking and eating address on the Riverside bank, on the site that was the River House backpackers. The glass-fronted bar and raised terrace look straight across the Taff at the Principality Stadium, which makes it the quiet-side base before a match. Stone-baked pizzas come out of the oven inside and Welsh spirits are behind the bar. Pizzas and burgers cost £11 to £16, and there are mid-range rooms on the floors above.
The bar opens at 16:00 midweek and 09:00 at weekends. Space hire and event bookings go through 029 2003 7077.
Y Mochyn Du (edge of Sophia Gardens) is a white-painted former Bute Estate castle lodge with steep gables, standing alone where the park ends. Signage is bilingual, Welsh is spoken across the bar, and there is singing after big matches. Brewing vessels are visible inside and the pub runs brewery experience days. The beer garden is large and tree-shaded.
Pints are £5 to £6.50 and mains £14 to £19. Use the current name: it traded as Brewhouse & Kitchen, Bragdy a Chegin, from 2017, and the Welsh name went back up when it reopened after refurbishment on 17 September 2026. It fills up on Glamorgan and rugby match days.
Where to sleep
Cardiff Caravan & Camping Park (Pontcanna Fields) is council-run and a flat 15-minute walk up the river from the market. Mown grass pitches and hook-up posts sit in open parkland ringed by tall poplars and limes, with the Taff Trail footpath running past the gate. It is the only campsite in the Riverside corridor and the cheapest way to sleep this close to the centre of a capital city.
Pitches cost £25 to £40 a night and are booked by enquiry. You must be 18 to book, and the maximum stay is 28 days. Weekends in 2026 are already full, so book months ahead.
Riverside itself has almost no hotel stock. Lincoln House Hotel (118–120 Cathedral Road) is a ten-minute walk north into Pontcanna, a double-fronted Victorian Gothic townhouse with bay windows and stained glass on a broad tree-lined avenue. A book-lined library lounge and a cooked-breakfast dining room sit inside. Doubles run £90 to £140 including full breakfast, and four-poster and family rooms are available. The castle and the stadium are both walkable from the door. Its own website has an expired security certificate, so book by phone or through a major platform.
Practical notes
The market is Sundays only and Eastern Chinese Supermarket shuts that day, which decides the order of your visits. Book caravan pitches months ahead, phone the gurdwara if you are arriving as a group, and check Glamorgan's fixture list between October and March. See the Cardiff guide and the Cardiff hotel search.
Questions
When is Riverside Market open?
Sundays only, 10:00 to 14:00, with more than 30 traders. Entry is free, plates cost £3 to £8 and produce £2 to £10. Arrive before 11:00, as the embankment path is narrow.
Is the Principality Stadium in Riverside?
No. It is across the River Taff, a two-minute walk away. Fitzhamon Embankment and the Millennium Riverwalk face it head on, and both are free.
Can I visit the gurdwara on Tudor Street if I am not Sikh?
Yes, Sri Dasmesh Singh Sabha Gurdwara is open to all faiths and to visitors. Sunday diwan runs 10:00 to 12:30 with free langar at 13:00. Cover your head, remove your shoes and wash your hands before the prayer hall. Phone 029 2022 4806 if you are coming as a group.
Where can I stay in or near Riverside?
Riverside has almost no hotels. On The River has mid-range rooms above the bar. Cardiff Caravan & Camping Park in Pontcanna Fields charges £25 to £40 a pitch. Lincoln House Hotel on Cathedral Road is £90 to £140 a double with full breakfast, a ten-minute walk north.
Is the cricket ground still called SSE SWALEC?
No. In 2026 it is just Sophia Gardens, so ignore the old sponsor name on signage and in listings. A county day costs £18 to £30, and there is no cricket from October to March.
First published on cardiffbreaks.com, the Cardiff guide.
