A long bath. Reading the papers. Drinking cold beer on a sunny afternoon. Lying in. Finishing an entire conversation with my husband. Shopping alone. Taking longer than 10 minutes to get dressed for dinner. Wandering aimlessly in the park. No clock watching. No rushing. No worrying.

These are just a few of the luxuries we achieved on our children-free weekend away in that capital of romance and well-known Mecca to Cupid – Cardiff. And time does heal all those scars which accumulate over the many years when nappies, snot and tears take precedence.

A weekend, rather than a night, away made all the difference in the world. Because an evening, however lovely, there’s still pressure.

You have time for dinner, a lie-in and a spot of ‘how’s your father’ and then it’s straight back to face the music – usually a combination of nursery rhymes and boy bands.

But instead a whole weekend stretched out in front of us, complex with its endless combinations of what we could do, dazzling us with the freedom and choice it offered.

It nearly didn’t happen at all mind you. Having checked our reservations at the new boutique hotel on the waterfront, Jolyons, we were told we had been double booked and there was no room at the inn.

Had we not phoned and checked we would have turned up suitcases in hand to discover we were homeless for the night, so I was not impressed. But luckily the newly revamped Plaza stepped into the void instead, and we were delighted with the swap, The Plaza being our kind of place.

But I digress. First came The Hilton, a five-star city centre favourite who placed two car weary travellers (it took us five hours to get there) in the Presidential Suite. Yes, the Presidential Suite, which the receptionist informed us was where statesmen and pop stars stayed when they came to Cardiff ... and us.

Situated on the top floor overlooking the city centre, we relaxed in the suite’s his-and-hers bathrooms, marvelling at our luck and managed to fit in a quick massage in the in-house spa.

When planning our visit, we thought we could explore Cardiff after dinner and then go to the waterfront the next day for some serious downtime in the sun.

So I phoned a friend who lives there. “Whatever you do don’t go out in Cardiff at night. It’s like Beirut,” were her first encouraging words.

“And don’t go down to the waterfront tomorrow. It’s the biggest football match in Cardiff’s entire history and 20,000 fans are watching it on the big screen down there.”

Pausing to wonder whether to pack our bags there and then, I opted for a large gin and tonic instead and endured a rather predictable dinner in the Hilton’s restaurant before we decided to risk our lives and go for a drink.

Twenty stag- and hen-dos later we found an Irish bar with a hilarious singer who kept us entertained until we chanced our arms and legged it back to our room. It wasn’t the most auspicious start.

Breakfast at the Hilton was a different ball game luckily, and duly fortified we decided to find out what Cardiff was all about, its identity remaining so far a mystery.

Tony Thomas was the guide laid on by the Tourist Information Centre who transformed our weekend by slowly opening Cardiff up, offering a side we hadn’t even glimpsed until then.

Huge shady parks, Victorian shopping arcades, the new rugby stadium and library gleaming with modern urbanity, the mock castle built in 1870 by the Bute family, the Georgian university buildings, the designer shops, the boat rides and cafes. And not a hen-do in sight, no doubt sleeping-off last night’s excesses ready for another bout of action.

It’s all there if you look for it – and thanks to Tony we found it.

Full of false bravado, we then risked the waterfront, knowing that a trip to Cardiff wouldn’t be complete without a glimpse of the city’s reinvention. And yes the football fans were there camped in front of the Millennium Stadium, its burnished metallic front splendid in the sun.

But the fans were extremely well-behaved in the amphitheatre-style seating, leaving us to explore the endless mix of restaurants, bars and cafes, with the well-heeled of Cardiff sprawled outside in the sun.

The Bosphorous restaurant’s balcony was where we settled for the afternoon and as I looked out over the hazy harbourside, thought it could well be the Mediterranean as we sipped ice cold beer and nibbled at the mezze laid out for us.

And there we read the papers. Not speed reading or just looking at the pictures, but cover to cover. And several beers and much relaxed chatting later, our Oxford skin reddened from the sun, we reluctantly packed up and returned to check in at The Plaza.

The Plaza was over the road from The Hilton so it wasn’t hard to find. And as soon as you step through the doors you know it’s a different ball game there. It may not have a Presidential Suite but the furnishings are sleek and contemporary, and the restaurant one of the best in town.

This is where the beautiful people hang out, and the women in particular were out in force as their husbands drank their way though the misery of Cardiff’s defeat at Wembley.

We had cocktails on the verandah, a really memorable meal in the modern restaurant and stayed up late in the urbane bar drinking and chatting until the small hours, the layers of domesticity peeling off as the clock hands spun.

We’ve been back a week now and I’m still basking in the glow. We still like each other and Cardiff may not be the city of romance but it turned us back into human beings and for that we will always remember it.