Hello Australia once again! This time at the eastern side and more specifically in Melbourne, a vibrant city of almost 4.5 millions inhabitants! It is obvious everywhere that the city is rich. Although relatively young compared to our European cities, it is full of beautiful buildings, both new-classic, gothic and modern. The centre has a lot of impressive buildings such as the
Flinders Station (with the Federation Square in the front)
The Saint Paul's Cathedral
The Royal Exhibition
The Parliament House
Flinders Station (with the Federation Square in the front)
The Saint Paul's Cathedral
The Royal Exhibition
The Parliament House
And Countless churches in between the tall office building of the central buisness district.
But Melbourne is also rich in culture. On the one hand it is full of theatres and museums and on the other hand it is totally multicultural. I was amazed with how many musicals were happening at the same time. The one that caught my eye was 'My Fair Lady' that was starting on Friday and was directed by Julie Andrews. (Oh my God! Gillian you hear? We should have been here together probably in two months) If only I was living in such a city!
Concerning the different communities living here, it seems that the biggest percentage of foreigners is asian. Most of the food you can find around is Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai or Japanese. The signs were even written everywhere in these languages (sorry they all look the same to me). And most of the faces you see around in the city are of Asian origin. The Chinese precinct in the centre of Melbourne is a distinct area with chinese arcs and a chinese museum.
We also found out that the Greek and Italain communities of the city are important as well. It seems that it is the third biggest Italian city and the biggest one outside Italy and the Greek precinct is indicated by using the typical greek maiandros at the street signs. We did hear greek around several times during our stay!
We stayed in this big metropole for three days. It took us one day to walk around all fo the centre and see everything I mentioned above. Thanks God it has an extensive network of public means of transportation, making communting around really easy, regardless the size of the city. The tram circuit was the most prominent, especially inside the centre, where using it is free of charge! They even have a line that circles the city centre, tailored for tourists with audio comentary.
The second day we visited three other places:
1. The Eureka Skydeck at the edge of Melbourne's CBD (central business district).
It is the tallest building in the city (almost 300m high), named after the expression the people were using when they found gold. We could climb as high as the 88th floor (out of 91), from where we could see the whole city (the area is rather flat). Several distinct buildings of the city were highlighted with the help of small binoculars aiming directly to them. We visited the Skydeck twice with a combined ticket: once with daylight and once in the evening. After having seen Auckland from the top just a few days ago, the morning view did not impress us extremely, but the evening view was really amazing! It was also full moon which made the night sky even more special!
It is the tallest building in the city (almost 300m high), named after the expression the people were using when they found gold. We could climb as high as the 88th floor (out of 91), from where we could see the whole city (the area is rather flat). Several distinct buildings of the city were highlighted with the help of small binoculars aiming directly to them. We visited the Skydeck twice with a combined ticket: once with daylight and once in the evening. After having seen Auckland from the top just a few days ago, the morning view did not impress us extremely, but the evening view was really amazing! It was also full moon which made the night sky even more special!
2. The Sea Life Aquarium. Almost opposite of the Eureka Skydeck, on the other bank of the Yarra river, is the Melbourne Aquarium. Dominik has been talking about visiting an Aquarium for some time, so we grabbed the opportunity. We saw a really beautiful collection of local fish and not only. We touched starfish, saw stingrays, some amazing sharks and some shy morays. They even had a huge saltwater crocodile and Lucas had a bit of a bad experience with him.
It's difficult to decide what we liked most, Dominik enjoyed the 2.2 million liter Oceanarium, which contained the big sharks, rays and other huge fish. There was a tunnel where they could swim over us! I think he spent more than 15 min amazed with the sea life!
For me I think I liked the small and fragile sea dragons most. They are a type of sea horses and the aquarium had two species. Especially the leafy one was adorable!
It's difficult to decide what we liked most, Dominik enjoyed the 2.2 million liter Oceanarium, which contained the big sharks, rays and other huge fish. There was a tunnel where they could swim over us! I think he spent more than 15 min amazed with the sea life!
For me I think I liked the small and fragile sea dragons most. They are a type of sea horses and the aquarium had two species. Especially the leafy one was adorable!
3. Our last activity of the day was a nice walk around the Saint Kilda beach, a south eastern suburb of Melbourne.
Dominik wanted to pass from the Luna park there, but unfortunately it was closed and only open on Sundays :p but we made a picture of the entrance anyway.
But it also has an extended beach area with beautiful golden sand and at a point of it there is a nice pier dominated by a replica of an old colonial building - now a cafe - that was burnt down in a fire in 2003. The most interesting feature though is just behind that nice cafe. There is a stretch of rocks that serve as wave breakers. In these rocks there are two hidden secrets: small penguins nesting among the gaps and water rats hunting at the water's edge. We were lucky to be there at the correct time as penguins nest at dusk. We did see parts of two of them. A small shivering grey body trying to hide from the stupid humans and one small greyish head thinking that he is not seen by the strange creatures that are trying to get a photo of it. Ragali, the small water rat that hangs out there was shy but was still going around its business. We saw him hunting in the water and climbing on the wooden pier where he had a small shelf to hide in. These two encounters were totally unexpected our bonus for deciding to head to this beautiful suburb of Melbourne for an afternoon walk!
Dominik wanted to pass from the Luna park there, but unfortunately it was closed and only open on Sundays :p but we made a picture of the entrance anyway.
But it also has an extended beach area with beautiful golden sand and at a point of it there is a nice pier dominated by a replica of an old colonial building - now a cafe - that was burnt down in a fire in 2003. The most interesting feature though is just behind that nice cafe. There is a stretch of rocks that serve as wave breakers. In these rocks there are two hidden secrets: small penguins nesting among the gaps and water rats hunting at the water's edge. We were lucky to be there at the correct time as penguins nest at dusk. We did see parts of two of them. A small shivering grey body trying to hide from the stupid humans and one small greyish head thinking that he is not seen by the strange creatures that are trying to get a photo of it. Ragali, the small water rat that hangs out there was shy but was still going around its business. We saw him hunting in the water and climbing on the wooden pier where he had a small shelf to hide in. These two encounters were totally unexpected our bonus for deciding to head to this beautiful suburb of Melbourne for an afternoon walk!
We did enjoy a bit of city sightseeing and definitely Melbourne deserved it! To finish this post I will tell you the funny fact about this city: before it was called Melbourne it was once called Batmania! Funny no? Now there is Batman avenue and Batman hill in the city! But no, they are not as crazy as you might think, it is not named after the comic hero Batman, but after John Batman who signed a treaty with the Aboriginies living in the area for buying the land and was one of the founders of Melbourne.