Melbourne

Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne on Good Friday and spent the day walking and bussing around  the city to find most places closed. They close for Christmas, Good Friday and the monday after Easter as well as Easter--interesting. (They were surprised that the US did not do this as we are so “religious”.

They have a free bus and a free trolley that takes you around the downtown area to specified places and it was good as my legs were tired from the two previous days of walking. This is a beautiful city and it has developed along the river very well on both sides. We can no longer brag about Portland's Light rail transportation system. They are best in the world, it says. They have commuter trains, light rail, under ground trains, busses, trams or trolleys and don’t know if they have ferries. They have a beautiful old building which houses the commuter train system. I don't know how old but it is something to see.

We attempted to find the Melbourne’s  ALLEYS or alley lanes, as they are called, where they have developed small cafes and shops. Since it was good friday most were closed, but we happened onto one cafe that was packed to the hilt with no room. We had to look for a place to eat and we had our first eggs benedict on our trip and it was very good. (Both NZ & Au serve breakfast most of the day)

There is a lots of public art and the graffiti artists have taken over the alley lanes. Bob says it was a photographers dream with all the colors. 

We loved the mixture of old buildings and modern buildings. There was lots of iron work from the 1800’s and we walked the neighborhood one early morning to see them.

One of Melbourne’s highlights was the trip up to the 88th floor of the Eureka building at night to view the city lights. I had to hold onto Bob as the floors were not even giving additional unsteadiness to the experience. The building has many angles jutting out and it feels like you are standing out beyond the building. Those hearty souls went to a special area which had a glass floor that looks down 88 stories. Melbourne was beautiful at night as was Sydney.