Melbourne - Cosmopolitan, Arcades and Lanes

Alrighty ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

This Tuesday we had ambitious plans for the day, so we wanted to start early. Well, didn’t work out entirely as we slept in but nevertheless we managed almost everything. It was still very cold at only 18 degrees Celsius, so we got our jeans and jackets and headed down to the famous Queen Victoria Market. It is a HUGE market with stalls and shops for food and non-food articles of all kinds.

We bought some fruits and souvenirs. One of them the most Australian souvenir you could possibly posess: a kangaroo! No kidding, we bought a kangaroo fur. They are not endangered and something actually quite a plague especially for farmers. It’s like having a cow fur in Germany. So please welcome our new Auer-Victor family member: Sheila!

She’ll probably not like the German weather too much but she is going to be a house pet anyway and not go out. After some more looking around we went for lunch at the Pancake Parlor in Bourke Street Mall and ordered a short stack of pancakes with ice cream.

Wanna guess who had which ice cream? ;-) At 1pm we joined the FREE guided Town Hall tour and got some inside information about the history of Melbourne, the Town Hall and how the council works. We went into some of the administration and council rooms and acted as Lord Major, went on the famous balcony and had the chance to hear the Grand Organ playing (the biggest organ in the southern hemisphere). The one-hour tour went by quickly.

At 2pm we started the so-called Cosmopolitan Tour which we got from the Visitor Information Center the day before. We saw many places like St. Paul’s Cathedrale (do not mix that one with the one in London), some theatres and other churches, statues, major hotels and places.

At the Parliament House we waited 30 min, ate the fruits we bought and then joined the FREE tour through the Parliament House. There are so many free tours, wifis and other things, it’s amazing! The tour lasted 30 minutes and we got some information on the building and the two houses, even went into the main rooms of both.

At 4pm we continued our self-guided tour through the CBD (Central Business District) which at the end led us through many different arcades and some smaller lanes back to Federation Square where the tour started.

It was 5pm and we slowly got an idea of why Melbourne is one of the top cities worldwide in regards to the living quality and also why it is considered the food capital of Australia. There are so many nice-looking bars, cafes and restaurants everywhere with great displays. Also for shopping it is an amazing place. We ate some snacks here and there, so we were not hungry yet and decided to do the Arcades & Lanes tour. We got around some other more or less interesting looking lanes because after 6pm quite a few shop close down. At 7pm we made our way back to the hotel to pack our stuff as we will change the hotel for a cheaper one and, more importantly, one that is much closer to the Southern end of the CBD as that is our next exploring region for tomorrow: the waterfront of Melbourne!

Yours Melbourne-city-sightseeing Stefanie