Five Seven One

Melbourne Australia has a feeling of prosperity, leisure, balance, daring, community, and health. I have not visited many cities that embody all of these attributes. The people are friendly and although they have one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world, they seem to have not lost sight of the value of life outside the workplace. At night the streets and parks are teaming with people enjoying life outside the home. Melbourne has several places for people to congregate and enjoy art, film, music, you name it you can find it on any given night.

Federation Square, located near the central business district on the Yarra River is composed of ultra modern buildings designed by Lab architecture studio from London in conjunction with Bates Smart a locally based firm. This site is a favorite for locals and tourist alike. The buildings house restaurants, museums, and shops, and the open civic square that is capable of accommodating 20,000 people, hosts films, bands, festivals, fashion shows, and according to their website Guinness Book record attempts.

Directly across for Federation Square you will find Flinders Street Station, which is the central railway of the suburban rail lines. Just across the Yarra from Flinders Station you can visit the Royal Botanic Gardens. In addition to housing over 10,000 species you can also see movies at night on one of the parks open lawns. Across from the gardens visit the National Gallery of Victoria and see a very impressive permanent collection in addition to their rotating exhibitions.

If you are looking for food you need to visit Queen Victoria Market. The market has an impressive selection of organic locally grown produce, meats and fish, and an expansive food court. The market also has retail shops that cater mostly to tourists looking for souvenirs.

We found out Australians like to party. We arrived in Melbourne on a Friday night. We drove to the central business district where our hotel was located. The streets were alive with intoxicated 20 something’s yelling and wandering in and out of the abundant clubs and bars. The party showed no signs of slowing until dawn. Waking up the next day around 8:00 and heading out for a walk to the market I expected to see the aftermath of the previous night activities, but everything was calm and clean as if it had never happened.

I have only been able to list a few of the things Melbourne has to offer. I have links at the end of the article for more information. I really enjoyed my time in the city. Just one quick story of something I was very impressed by. We were walking in the main shopping district when we passed an alley lined with graffiti. I always enjoy checking out street art around the world so we decided to take a closer look. About half way down we came across two city employees cleaning the graffiti, not removing it, cleaning it. I was dumfounded. We spoke with one of the men and they told us the city provides locations for writers to do their work legally then the city takes care of it. I thought that was pretty cool.

Usefull Resources:

• City of Melbourne Home Page
• Federation Square
• Royal Botanic Gardens
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Queen Victoria Market