Roath Park, Cardiff, Wales

Opened in 1894, Roath Park contains a 30 acre man-made lake, featuring the Scott Memorial Lighthouse, the Wild Garden, the Llandennis Oval, the Botanic Garden with a large conservatory and the Roath Pleasure Gardens with bowls, tennis and basketball facilities.

Ty Mawr, near Lisvane, Cardiff

Set on high ground with sweeping views of the surrounding countryside and suburbia, Ty Mawr's setting is a cut above that of the average Brains-owned pub. The large interior, split between a bar and restaurant, is full of wooden beams and blackboards. The menu, which ranges from Welsh cawl to swordfish steak to Texan chilli, is suspiciously long and international, but the food is generally excellent, given the low prices. On a Sunday lunchtime, you can order a slow-roasted shoulder of lamb (£12), which is a generous hunk of delicious meat that falls easily off the bone, lying on a bed of creamy mash potatoes doused in gravy. It is accompanied by slightly over-cooked carrots and broccoli. Both the scampi, served with chips and a salad of well-dressed cherry tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce, and the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding (£8), also make for tasty and filling plates of food. Alternatively, you can get a moist piece of fish, caked in a thin and light batter, served with fat chips and some minty, mushy peas. There is a dedicated kids menu or children can have slightly smaller versions of the adult meals for just £4.50 and most will struggle to finish their plate.

Mini doughnuts
The deserts include a small mountain of mouthwatering and moreish chocolate sponge full of hot chocolate sauce, served with ice cream and a strawberry. Among the four deserts on the kids menu, all just 99 pence, is a big bowl of decent ice cream or four mini doughnuts served with a chocolate or strawberry sauce. The drinks are also very reasonable - a pint of Brains bitter, which is smooth and refreshing for an ale, is £2.35. Unsurprisingly, it can be tough to get a table inside on a November Sunday, but there are plenty of tables outside, if the sun is shining. From here, there are fine views and you can keep an eye on the kids running around the playground or the big, bumpy, grass lawn, which is good for a kick around. 8/10

Caerphilly Ridge, near Cardiff

Overlooking Cardiff and the Mouth of the Severn beyond, Caerphilly Ridge rises more than 250 metres just a few miles north of the city. From one of the small car parks, you can walk through the picturesque woodland clinging to the hillside and it is worth making the steep climb through the trees up to the top. From the clearings on the ridge path, you can see the white superstructure of the Millennium Stadium rising above the cityscape in the distance. Caerphilly Ridge is a good place to head for a scenic stroll within easy reach of the Welsh capital. 7/10

The Barrage Walk, Cardiff Bay

If you have kids, the round trip from Cardiff Bay to the playground on the barrage, enclosing the harbour, makes for an invigorating two mile walk. As you head towards the attractive waterfront of Penarth in the distance, you can survey an eclectic mix of ultra modern and nineteenth century architecture. Lined with old-fashioned lamp-posts, the route takes you past the space-age glass and steel of the Welsh Assembly and a Norwegian white clapboard church, housing an arts centre and coffee shop. Outside the church is a striking, but amorphous, mosaic statue of a sailor. Further along, the wide path is lined with ugly and high mesh fences, patches of wasteland and disused Victorian warehouses and docks. But look back across the yachts in the bay and you'll see a red brick Gothic harbour building, which looks a bit like a Rhineland fairytale castle, against a backdrop of the gleaming gold armadillo-shaped Cardiff Opera House. Further around is a row of handsome Victorian terrace houses flanking a large and smart white apartment block with a funky arc mounted on its flat roof. As you approach the barrage itself, you come to an imaginative wooden playground with a nautical theme. The centrepiece is a shipwreck, with colourful bunting hanging from its masts and barrels strewn around, half-buried in the sand. From here, you get a fine view of the grassy mounds of the islands in the middle of the wide open waters of the mouth of the Severn. If it also had a coffee shop, it would be a great spot for both adults and kids to pass an hour or two. 7/10

Roath Park, Cardiff

A favourite route for local joggers, one lap of Roath Park makes for a three-mile, gently-undulating run. At one end, the park is dominated by a large boating lake, complete with its own lighthouse, an elegant jetty, a flock of aggressive geese and a fleet of traditional wooden rowing boats. Despite the fairly busy surrounding roads, the hills rising in the north make for a scenic outing on the water. There is also a large playground with an exceptionally long slide at the southern end of the lake and further south, a stylised wooded glade is dissected by a road. The glade then bleeds into sports fields and another playground at their south-east tip. Roath Park seems to be very well-used and appreciated by the locals. 7/10

Amelia Trust Farm, Whitton Rosser, Five Mile Lane, Walterson, near Cardiff

Run by a charitable trust to help disadvantaged young people and those with learning difficulties, this working farm generously offers free access to all and sundry. At the main entrance, is a children's playground, a cafe, a large enclosure that is home to a couple of dishevelled donkeys, various hen coops, rabbit pens and pig stys. You can stroke most of the animals or watch them being fed. Follow the path into the surrounding woodland and you will soon reach an adventure playground, complete with a wooden house raised seven feet off the ground - ideal for boys wanting to reenact jungle warfare. The path goes further, passing fields containing horses and sheep, before reaching a picturesque pond where tadpoles breed in large numbers. Scattered around the farm are informative signs and park benches dedicated to the deceased, sadly some of them children. Although it is free, Amelia is run by volunteers and donations are encouraged. Alternatively, you could buy some of the free-range eggs. 7/10

Glamorganshire Canal Local Nature Reserve, near Cardiff, Wales

Shaded by trees, this tranquil mile-long path runs between a dilapidated, but charming, canal and a natural river. Once an impressive feat of Georgian engineering, this artificial waterway has succumbed to nature - fallen trees wallow in the water and lillies float on the surface. If you start at the Whitchurh Hospital end, you can return via the Taff Trail, which runs alongside Cardiff's main river. The Taff is more open and not as scenic as the canal, but it is worth stopping at the noisy weir to watch the salmon trying in vain to jump up through the cascading water. Even though suburbia is never far away, the round trip makes for a fine semi-rural, three-mile walk on the edge of Cardiff. 7/10