IT was a cold and wet Friday night when I crossed the border into South Wales for a weekend in Newport.

I must confess that the city itself is nothing to write home about. The bad weather only served to make it look more grim.

But a multi-million-pound regeneration plan – much like Derby's Cityscape – is changing all that and Newport is ideally placed to explore Cardiff and the surrounding area.

The warm welcome from the Welsh people also more than made up for the wind and rain.

I began my weekend with a a meal and some cider tasting at the Bell Inn, in nearby Caerleon. The pub has a list of awards as long as your arm for its food, real ales and ciders and every one is deserved.

The food – even for a picky vegan like me – was superb and the ales, cider and perry soon soothed away the chills of the night.

The next day and it was off to Tredegar House, said to be one of the best examples of a 17th-century Charles II mansion in the UK. Parts of the building date back to the early 1500s and it was home to the Morgan family for more than 500 years until 1951.

The house itself has been painstakingly restored by the local council and most of the rooms are now how they would have been hundreds of years ago, from the lavishly-decorated Gilt Room and New Hall to the simple Bell Passage and Servants' Hall.

One nugget of local information surrounds Lady Rachel Morgan (1697-1780), who married William Morgan the elder – a Welsh Whig politician – in about 1724.

Lady Rachel was the daughter of William Cavendish, the 2nd Duke of Devonshire and part of a family renowned for its links with Chatsworth and Bolsover Castle.

Make sure you take the guided tour to hear some of the amazing tales of the Morgans: wild weekend parties attended by the rich and famous; a menagerie of animals, such as a boxing kangaroo; and the "madness of Elizabeth Dayrell", involving attacks on her husband and servants.

My next visit was to the Big Pit National Coal Museum, a deep mine that was worked from 1860 until its closure in 1980.

If you have a phobia about the darkness, tight spaces or being 293 feet below the ground, this is not for you. If you like a little adventure, you'll love it.

You begin at the top by getting a battery pack attached around your waist by a belt. From this is attached a cable to a lamp on your helmet.

Each person also gets what is called a re-breather, a device that can filter foul air for up to an hour to allow for escape in the event of an emergency.

Visitors crowd into a small cage and are then lowered down the mine shaft, accompanied by a guide. All the guides are former miners themselves.

And so begins a tour of the underworld. There are several miles of tunnels but many areas are unsafe due to bad air – the so-called black damp – and collapses.

But there is still plenty to see, including the pens where the pit ponies were kept and the huge doors that were opened and closed by boys as young as five in the darkness for coal-filled wagons to roar through the mine.

All of this is in cramped, black tunnels held up by old wooden props. Water drips from the ceilings and walls and, at one point, rushes alongside the path in a channel. This place is fascinating but not for the faint-hearted.

Once back above ground, I paid a visit to the nearby Blaenavon Cheddar Company for a go at cheese dipping.

The family business is based in the town's bustling high street and, as well as letting tourists "have a go", sells 12 cheddars and four goats' cheeses in its shop.

Among the ingredients used are whisky, wine and ale and the cheeses are said to be delicious. It was definitely not a good day to be vegan!

The day ended with a trip to the Nutcracker ballet at the huge Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. It was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend.