I am here!

I arrived in Melbourne, Australia Saturday morning at about 6 am. By 7, I was at my hotel and by some miracle, my room was ready. This gave me a chance to take a very long, well needed nap before venturing out to start exploring.

The city is a beautiful mix of 1800s and modern architecture. The view from my room is spectacular.

After my nap, I took a walk into the CBD (central business district), had a lovely late lunch in a Greek restaurant near my hotel, then turned in for the night in hopes of making up for that lost day.

Lunch of Greek salad and tsatsiki on the South Bank promenade.

I got a great nights sleep and had Sunday breakfast at the hotel. The view from my breakfast table:

Hotel breakfast with a view

When visiting a city I don’t know, I really like to take a walking tour when I first arrive. The tour I took today, called “The ultimate Melbourne walking tour: history, laneways, and culture”, was awesome. We started at the old treasury building, where we heard about the gold rush of the 1850s which resulted in rapid growth from a small encampment of a few hundred to a multicultural city of >500,000 within a few years. Several societal firsts stem from Melbourne, the 8 hour work day and anonymous voting chief among them. Had no idea the city was so culturally influential.

In addition to learning about its history, we had a chance to walk the lane ways, which contain street art, galleries, cafes, and restaurants. These colorful alleyways are really fun to explore

Saw many other things as well: oldest continuous chinatown, the state library, which has a magnificent reading room where Germaine Greer wrote “The Female Eunuch”, and so much interesting architecture, including these giant gold insects which I don’t understand but found captivating

We ended the tour in an old pub, where I had a cold beer with the others on the tour - 2 families from the UK who were incredibly friendly. The tour was just excellent - highly recommend!

Sunday night, I had quick drink at the hotel lounge, then dinner at Maha - not the RFK Jr version, but rather a well regarded middle eastern restaurant. It was unusual food, and so delicious. Absolutely loved it

All in all, a fantastic first weekend in Melbourne! More soon….