Day Three: Walking Melbourne

Day 3: In-depth Tour of Melbourne

With rain in the forecast, we decided to spend the day in the city. After a 20-minute train ride, we arrived at Flinders Street Station, in the heart of Melbourne. With no particular goal in mind, we just started walking.

The variety of shops blows my mind. There are clothing boutiques that Melanie would love, specialty chocolate stores that Dana and Tonya would love, book stores, electronic stores, souvenir stores, and tons of restaurants—mostly fast food including lots of Asian. Even the alleys are populated, mostly lined with cafes and coffee shops and bakeries. Office buildings tower overhead, the streets are busy with cars and busses and trams. There is no spare inch in Melbourne. If you can dream it up, there’s a place to buy it. The front window of a cigar shop was lined with bongs—an event that had Caroline and I baffled. But out of all that—only one Mexican restaurant!!

After wandering through the streets, we stopped for lunch and then went to the Parliament building. A free 45 minute tour explained the workings of the Australian government. The members of the tour group were as diversified as the representatives that would have sat in the rooms; people from Hong Kong, England, Ireland… nearly each person was from a different county and I the only from America. I don’t usually find government issues interesting, but I enjoyed the tour.

After that, we walked through some beautiful gardens and churches. The gardens are kept immaculate and well-groomed, with blooming shrub-sized flowers that are normally 12-inch tall annuals at home. And the magnolia trees! Mom would be so jealous. We came upon the St Patrick's cathedral and couldn’t resist going inside this huge, ancient building. The inside was just as majestic as the outside, with brilliant yellow sunlight filtering in through the stained glass windows down onto the pews. Back outside, fountains and more landscaping sparkled in the sun.

Making our way back into the city, it finally looked like it might rain so we decided to go to the Rialto Observation Deck. Up on the 55^th floor, we were able to see the entire city—but no rain! I snagged some postcards and we spent about an hour just soaking up the view.

Both of us were exhausted from a long day walking in the sun, so we headed for home. A quick 5-block walk back to the train station, then before we knew it, we were enjoying a fully-loaded salad in front of The Biggest Loser and So You Think You Can Dance—the Australian versions, of course. ;)

Lots of pictures!