We love Melbourne! We spent the past two days wandering the downtown center, exploring laneways and museums and shopping, taking free trams all over, all in glorious sunshine. What a great city!
Tuesday was a travel day, so we spent most of the day in transit from northern Tasmania to Melbourne. Our hotel is in the historic downtown, a bustling area with shops of all kinds from high-end designer boutiques and decadent pastry shops to more mundane businesses. Between the major streets there are alleys, called laneways, many of which have smaller shops and many cafes and restaurants. P
There is a huge four story mall across the street with every exclusive name brand store you can think of, and many more we never heard of. After exploring the mall, we took the tram to Fitzroy Garden, which is near the Parliament and other government buildings. We enjoyed walking along the paths through wide expanses of manicured lawns dotted with huge trees.
In the evening, we had a walking tour of Chinatown with a local Chinese-Australian guide, who told us about the difficult times Chinese immigrants had when they came to Australia and how they managed and prospered. There were lots of restaurants, as well as buildings that used to host opium and gambling dens (tucked behind the church, much to the regret of the congregation). We really enjoyed learning about the Chinese history and culture in the city.
Today we had a walking tour of the city with our leader, Rod, learning about the architecture of a city that went from 23 families to half a million people in about 30 years because of the gold rush. It was cool to see how such incredible growth influenced the city, and the ornate buildings that result from the enormous wealth the gold rush brought. It this area the laneways were elaborate passageways designed for window shopping, with exclusive shops and cafes.
Banks on the Golden Mile were designed to look like churches to be more “trustworthy” for the gold seekers.
Since Anzac Day is on Saturday, we saw a lot of people
Selling medals to commemorate the day. We had a nice conversation with this soldiers
, and bought some rosemary pins for remembrance.
We were particularly interested in learning more about the indigenous people of Australia and visited the Koori Heritage Trust to learn about some of the groups that were in this area before they were forced out. The architecture and artwork was lovely, and we learned quite a lot more about how the indigenous people related to the land, and how that was used against them by the colonizers. We also saw a collection of tools as well with the guides who explained how they were used. One especially interesting custom was giving every child a possum skin at birth in which symbols were painted. Additional skins with paintings were sewn to the original over the individual's life, so the blanket told the important events in the life.
In the afternoon, we went to the very popular central library to see an exhibit about Ned Kelly, with the actual “Armor” that he was wearing when he was captured. We talked about how he became such a folk hero in Australia, and how popular he remains today.
We spent more time in trams touring the city, and ended up the day at an opal museum and shop. We had a lovely group dinner in the evening at a pub that had been open since 1861. The food was delicious!
Opalized fossils!
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