Cardiff Wales or Chester England

I enjoyed both. They are quite different. Chester is smaller and "cuter". It is more obviously touristy. If too many fellow tourists set your teeth on edge, you may enjoy Cardiff more. If you love half-timbered buildings, Chester's a better bet. When I have to make a choice like that, I usually go with what makes the most logistical sense.

I would go to Chester, it’s a beautiful town, has a town crier, beautiful Roman Wall that you can walk one. Chester Cathedral is absolutely beautiful.

I've always enjoyed Chester because it does have enough tourist amenities to make it a comfortable home base to go to Conwy, Liverpool, or Manchester. The Wall is just the right length for an after meal walk.

I love Chester. The Rows of two-storied arcades is unique.

Pretty nice river too. And canal. And fab cathedral. Pretty great walls. Plenty more too.

The Roman Garden, not so much....

Adding my vote for Chester, spent three days there in 2016 with lots to do and see: Cathedral and gardens with the Falconry show, City Walls, Roman amphitheater and old town. There are also full day tours of Northern Wales from Chester if you're not interested in driving - I took a "North Wales Adventure" day tour from BusyBus and had a great experience with them. They really packed a lot into one day and 150 miles - ticked all the boxes for me: from Llandudno including St. Tudno's Chapel, free time at Conwy Castle, Snowdonia, Betws-Y-Coed, and even the Pontcysyllte Canal Aqueduct with a small group (no more than 16 people).

This last May, I took a day trip by train from Salisbury to Cardiff and thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the town center and the Castle, but can't offer much more than that on Cardiff.

Have a great time no matter which you choose!

Another vote for Chester.

I suggest that you take a look at the official tourism sites:>http://www.visitcardiff.com
https://www.visitengland.com/things-to-do/chester

If visiting Cardiff, this place (5 miles west of the city centre) is well worth a visit:> https://museum.wales/stfagans/about/
Also Caerphilly Castle = a short local train ride (17 minutes) to the north. http://www.castlewales.com/caerphil.html

Note that when buying train tickets for longer journeys, they will be much cheaper if you advance book specific trains - ideally around 11 weeks ahead. Check out on www.nationalrail.co.uk

Of course, you could do both as direct trains link Cardiff with Chester. See map:> http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/images/structure/css/nationalrailnetworkmap.pdf

If you are looking for ye olde England, then I would go to Chester. We went to Cardiff and it was an interesting place, seeing signs in both Welsh and English. We took the train and toured the Welsh Assembly, saw Cardiff Bay and visited Cardiff Castle, a Victorian idea of a castle built by an Englishman. We also stopped for lunch at a wonderful little Italian restaurant right near the stadium, Casanova. A genuine Italian restaurant(think Italy) with a limited but lovely menu. Honestly, it was the best Italian food I've tasted outside Italy. Only glitch was when our train stopped due to some problem on the track and were delayed for 45 minutes.

We visited Liverpool and did a tour into North Wales that included Conwy in 2013. It was a great tour.

In October 2017 we did a four week drive tour of South Wales and England. We came into Wales from Bath, visiting Tintern Abbey, then on to Cardiff, stopping to see another Raglan Castle.

We spent two nights in Cardiff. Cardiff castle was the main attraction in the city, and Caerphilly was a short train ride just north of the city. Also, on our way to Tenby, we stopped at the Welsh Museum of Life (forgot the name) that recreated a village by moving historical homes there. That was well worth a visit.

Have not been to Chester. I would have enjoyed the Roman History from there. They are both good.

I haven't been to Cardiff, but visited Chester last Spring. It is a very pretty, historic town. We enjoyed walking the walls. Used it as a jumping off point for visiting Wales. It worked out very well for that.