Explore Melbourne

Melbourne is neck and neck with Sydney, as Australia’s largest cities. Melbourne sits on the southeast coast of Australia, in the state of Victoria and has a population of just over 5 million. It has a quirky reputation, which includes unpredictable weather, a huge coffee culture, a huge sports event calendar, a strong arts scene and is very multicultural in its’ citizens and food scene. It consistently ranks among the world’s most liveable cities. It has very good infrastructure and public transportation, which we used each day we were there, including a free tram system in the central business district. We arrived in the city not long after it had hosted the Australian Open major tennis tournament and the Australian Grand Prix, a formula one car race (which attracts 450,000 spectators over 4 days). Melbourne has several universities, numerous art galleries, a spectacular state library, many sports venues, beautiful shopping arcades and quirky shopping, restaurant and art laneways, as well as a fantastic central market. The Yarra River runs through the city and leads to a wine area not far from the city. Melbourne also has the largest container port in the country and numerous nearby beaches. It does occasionally get a coastal stream from Antarctica, that can bring cool breezes to counteract the super hot summertime winds from inland Australia.

We stayed five nights in Melbourne. The only fixed plan we had was for day 3, which was to take a bus tour to Phillip Island. So for the first two days and day 4 we set about sightseeing various things in Melbourne. From the description above you can tell there is lots to see and do in Melbourne. After three days of exploring we decided for the last day we would take the Tram (public transportation) out to the beach suburb of St. Kilda. We had a relaxing day walking around St. Kilda.

Here are some details of our sightseeing:

Day 1 - we started with a visit to the local tourist information office, which was loaded with lots of free maps, brochures, info and staff that were extremely friendly answering any questions about the city and area. After getting some great tips and info we started with a ride on the free tram system, doing a loop around the central business area to get our bearings. From that we walked around Federation Square area and the famous Flinders Street Train Station. With a map detailing a couple of nice walking tours of art (and graffiti) filled laneways and fancy shopping arcades we set out to have a look at some of those. Later in the afternoon we went to the National Gallery of Victoria (free entry) and the State of Victoria Library and its’ galleries. We had very nice supper at the Italian restaurant that was adjacent with the hotel.

Day 2 - on this day we started with a visit to the Queen Victoria Market, which was about a 5min walk from our hotel. This market was amazing, one of the largest we have ever visited. It had two large buildings, which housed all kinds of miscellaneous goods, including clothing, crafts and collectables for sale as well as fruits and vegetable produce and in a separate building there was meats, fish and other foods. There were also food vendors, sit down restaurants and cafes. In the afternoon we continued our laneways and arcades walking tour and we followed this with a visit to a paid exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci at a place called The Lune. This exhibition was very interesting and fun, with a large convention style room where the walls, floor large video screens all showed works by da Vinci.

Day 4 - we went back to the Queen Vic Market again to look around at various items. From there we explored some more lanes on the way to the Museum of Moving Pictures (free entry). Then we went to the south bank side of the Yarra River to go up to the Eureka Skydeck, for the skyscraper views of Melbourne. From there we went for a stroll along the Yarra River and stopped for a beverage and some oysters at a riverside bar. In the evening we went for a tasty supper at the Red China restaurant in Chinatown.

Here are some pictures: