Where to go out in Cardiff

St Mary Street is the spine of a Cardiff night out — big bars, late licences and the overspill from every match day at the Principality Stadium. It gets loud and it gets busy, and on an international weekend it's the busiest street in Wales.

Womanby Street is the opposite end of the scale: independent venues, live music and a crowd that turns up for the lineup rather than the address. Mill Lane and the Hayes lean more towards food, cocktails and outside tables when the weather allows it.

Cardiff Bay is its own night out. Mermaid Quay's waterfront bars and restaurants run at a slower pace than town, and it's the obvious call for an early evening that doesn't need to end at 3am.

Match days rewrite the rules. On a Six Nations Saturday the city centre fills from late morning and stays full, so if you want a table anywhere near St Mary Street you're going in early or not at all.

Outside of that, town builds from around 9pm and peaks between 11pm and 1am. Thursdays run harder than most cities thanks to the student population, and Sunday afternoons in the Bay and around Pontcanna are quietly one of the best-kept parts of the Cardiff week.

Pontcanna and Canton do the neighbourhood thing properly — proper pubs, small plates, wine bars and a crowd that mostly walked there. Roath and Albany Road serve the student end of the city with cheaper rounds and later kitchens.

All of it shows up on the Realtime map, so you can check what's busy in Canton before you decide whether it's worth heading into town at all.