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Finding Essential Melbourne
By Simone Egger
Melbourne is lush: every facet of its nature is abundant
and generous. Its locals have connections to all parts of
the world – nurturing the metropolis of ideas that Melbourne
generates and celebrates with gusto.
Melbourne’s two first loves: the arts and sport, have
their own hubs huddled around the banks of the Yarra River.
The National Gallery of Victoria: International and Arts Centre
are the focus for arty types, and Yarra Park and Melbourne
Cricket Ground the mecca for die-hard sports fans. Federation
Square contains a bevy of stimuli: from the Australian Centre
for the Moving Image and National Gallery’s Australian
art collection at the Ian Potter Centre to a range of representatively
stellar cafés and restaurants. Squeezed between Fed
Square and the Yarra, Birrarung Marr is Melbourne’s
newest public park. The Yarra is also festooned with a number
of slick waterfront city precincts, such as Southgate and
the Casino, providing stylish shopping and dining opportunities.
Step off any main street in the CBD and venture down a city
laneway. These hidden narrow hinterlands are a vital part
of Melbourne containing some of the smartest retail outlets
and galleries; start with Flinders Lane and Little Collins
St. Find the city’s heaving drinking dens - and you
do have to find them - in loads of unlikely-looking laneways,
behind unassuming doorways, down in basements and up flights
of stairs. A large number of Melbourne’s renowned cafés
and restaurants are also hunkered down in alleyways: serving
a world of cuisines and world-class coffee.
Stray slightly from the CBD’s boundaries in any direction
and you’ll find yourself in one of Melbourne’s
colourful inner suburbs. St Kilda is Melbourne’s celebrity
good-time suburb: its perky seaside surrounds are constantly
in the limelight: home to conspicuous consumption, host to
innumerable parties, replete with a reputation for a seamier
side. Just 20 metres of Brunswick St, Fitzroy contains: a
pub, five cafés, a perfumery, bookshop, hairdresser,
bar and a clothing boutique with a busker camped out the front.
It’s the most frenetic strip of establishments dedicated
entirely to dispensable living.
Melbourne is a riot of activity, with a public festival or
event every other week, where the only door policy is a desire
to join in.
The new edition of Lonely Planet’s
guide to Melbourne will be released in November 2004.
The Top 5
Australian Centre for the Moving
Image (ACMI) at Federation Square
Royal Botanic Gardens
Immigration Museum
Queen Victoria Market
Rialto Towers observation deck
Conversation Starters
‘Who makes the best coffee
in town?’
Anything to do with sport. For
the uninitiated try, ‘Who do you barrack for?’
‘Where’d you get that fabulous bag/pair
of shoes /tattoo /haircut?’ |
Melbourne
5th Edition
Simone Egger
Published November 2004
ISBN 1 74059 776 1
$32.90
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