THE last quarter of the year brought me and my family to the Australian city of Melbourne, regularly listed among the world’s greatest cities in which to live. Our home for our weeklong visit was Empire Apartments, right in the middle of the city’s shopping district and, from our 48th floor suite, we had a bird’s eye preview of what this beautiful city had to offer. A short walk from the Empire are cafés, coffee shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the retail meccas Melbourne Central, QV, Bourke Street, Emporium and the Queen Victoria Market. The weather throughout our stay was a cool 12 degrees centigrade.
The hulking beauty of Flinders Street Station, Australia’s first city railway station, was our frequent starting point for touring the city. Completed in 1909, more than 100,000 commuters pass through it each day. With its iconic clocks, it is especially photogenic when Melbourne’s trams amble by. Here, we rode a piece of Australia’s heritage via the City Circle Tram (route number 35) which provides a free and convenient way for tourists and locals to witness Melbourne‘s prominent tourist attractions and major events, while riding on an iconic tram.
On our first day, we decided to visit the Shrine of Remembrance (commonly referred to as The Shrine), one of the largest war memorials in Australia and, from there, walked over to the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne’s most famous patch of green and one of the city’s most impressive treasures, before capping our day with a visit to the Eureka Skydeck 88, the highest public vantage point in a building in the Southern Hemisphere, at the 297.3-meters (975 feet) high, 91-story Eureka Tower, the second-highest building in Australia.
Our Sunday started with a visit to the Royal Exhibition Building, a World Heritage-listed building which hosted the Melbourne International Exhibition (1880–1881) and the even larger Centennial International Exhibition in 1888, followed by an exploration of the Melbourne Museum, a natural and cultural history museum (the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere).
Parks were again in our itinerary as we strolled the small, triangular Parliament Reserve (where we walked inside the curtains of cascading water of the unusual Coles Fountain), the 24-hectare Carlton Gardens (a network of tree-lined paths, providing formal avenues for highlighting its three fountains and the architecture of the Exhibition building) and Fitzroy Park (a major Victorian era landscaped garden) prior to hearing mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the tallest and, overall, the largest church building in Australia.
On other days, we visited State Library Victoria (Australia’s oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the world), strolled through Chinatown (the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the western world), Saint Paul’s Cathedral (the cathedral church of the Diocese of Melbourne and the seat of the Archbishop of Melbourne), Federation Square (a venue for arts, culture and public events on the edge of the city’s Central Business District) and the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia’s oldest, largest and most-visited art museum).
Our last day in the city happened to be Melbourne Cup Day, Australia’s best known horse racing event that “stops a nation.” A day off for the general population of Victoria, schools and most businesses were closed. To celebrate the event, people dress up, with many women wearing their best or most colorful hats and dresses, some being driven, on their way to Flemington Racecourse, via horse-drawn carriages.
That day was also our most hectic as we visited the then-closed (it being a public holiday) colonnaded Parliament House (the meeting place of the Parliament of Victoria), experienced a unique encounter with the justice system by being processed and “charged with a crime” at the Watch House, made a 1.5-hour tour of the adjoining Old Melbourne Gaol (a building that once held Victoria’s most notorious criminals and the site of over 130 executions since it opened in 1841) and learned about Australia’s immigration history at the Immigration Museum (housed in the grand Old Customs House building).
Melbourne’s street art scene is one of the most vibrant and important in the world and we capped our tour by visiting Hosier Lane, a sprayed, stenciled alley at the city center. This must-see sight is a veritable gallery serving up an ever-changing feast of Technicolor brilliance. Truly, a colorful climax to any visit to this colorful city.