26 Best Things to Do in Melbourne

The sights of Mel­bourne are more than banal excur­sions and bor­ing lec­tures at the muse­um. Long walks along the ancient streets and mod­ern squares will be appre­ci­at­ed by aes­thetes and his­to­ry buffs. Nature lovers are wel­comed by parks and reserves. And local shop­ping will turn into an excit­ing event for tourists of all ages.

Architecture

Flinders Street Station

Flinders Street is both the main rail­way sta­tion and the hall­mark of the city. A beau­ti­ful build­ing and plat­forms were built in 1910, after 7 years Flinders Street became the busiest sta­tion in the world. Today it pass­es through itself about 2 thou­sand trains and more than 110 thou­sand pas­sen­gers.

The main attrac­tion of the sta­tion is a round clock on the facade, bought in the UK in the 1860s. Lat­er, dur­ing the recon­struc­tion, they were replaced with more accu­rate dig­i­tal ones, but the pub­lic became indig­nant and the his­tor­i­cal rel­ic was returned to its place.

The next time active cit­i­zens inter­vened was in the 1970s, when the Mel­bourne author­i­ties made the ill-advised deci­sion to close the dilap­i­dat­ed sta­tion. After ral­lies and debates, funds were allo­cat­ed for the repair of the sta­tion. In total, about 7 mil­lion Aus­tralian dol­lars were spent. With this mon­ey, the facade was updat­ed, the plat­forms were repaired, the sta­tion was stuffed with mod­ern elec­tron­ics, and a fash­ion­able restau­rant and a store were opened.

Rippon Lee Manor

The pic­turesque estate is locat­ed in the town of Elstern­wick, in the sub­urbs of Mel­bourne. The promi­nent politi­cian and busi­ness­man Fred­er­ic Sar­good bought 40 acres of land for his large fam­i­ly, on which he built an unusu­al house, plant­ed a gar­den and dug a pond.

The design of the man­sion by archi­tect Joseph Reid was inspired by a palaz­zo in Italy. Rip­pon Lee became the first man­sion with its own elec­tric gen­er­a­tors that con­tin­u­ous­ly gen­er­at­ed elec­tric­i­ty. After the death of Sar­gud in 1903, the man­sion was rebuilt and sup­ple­ment­ed, the most impor­tant acqui­si­tion of those years was the out­build­ing tow­er.

Rip­pon Lee wan­dered from one own­er to anoth­er, each of whom tried to bring his own to the design and dec­o­ra­tion.

Once, a branch of a tele­vi­sion stu­dio was even placed in the house. The local author­i­ties saved the archi­tec­tur­al gem from total destruc­tion by buy­ing it out. Today the man­sion is open to the pub­lic. Here you can walk through the park, look into the green­house and go into the house itself.

Federation Square

A favorite meet­ing place for cit­i­zens, the epi­cen­ter of cul­tur­al and pub­lic events — Fed­er­a­tion Square appeared on the map of Mel­bourne in 1997. In fact, this is a quar­ter with an area of ​​​​about 40 thou­sand square meters. m, bound­ed by Rus­sell, Swen­son, Flinders streets on one side and the Yarra Riv­er on the oth­er.

Along its perime­ter are gal­leries, cafes, restau­rants, bars and sou­venir shops. In the cen­ter there are two places for pub­lic meet­ings. This is a cov­ered atri­um and an amphithe­ater that can accom­mo­date up to 35,000 spec­ta­tors.

Parliament

Con­trary to the loud name, not par­lia­men­tar­i­ans sit here, but only the gov­er­nor of the state of Vic­to­ria. Decrees are signed here and impor­tant instruc­tions are giv­en. The Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, which is con­sid­ered the epit­o­me of the Vic­to­ri­an style, began to be built in 1855 and was com­plet­ed only 70 years lat­er.

First, work was com­plet­ed on the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil Halls. Lat­er, two sep­a­rate struc­tures sep­a­rat­ed by Bourke Street were con­nect­ed. About 40 years after the start of con­struc­tion, a library appeared here, and anoth­er 10 years lat­er the con­struc­tion of the lob­by and the Queen’s Hall was com­plet­ed.

Colon­nades and por­ti­cos were added to the façade over­look­ing Spring Street. Then the north­ern wing was put into oper­a­tion, and after 30 years the offi­cials got rest rooms. Accord­ing to the project, the build­ing was sup­posed to have a dome, but it was decid­ed to aban­don it, although the ques­tion of its con­struc­tion is raised from time to time.

Eureka Tower

The height of the 91-storey sky­scraper in down­town Mel­bourne is 297 m. This is the tallest build­ing in the state of Vic­to­ria. The black-and-white giant is named after the upris­ing at the Eure­ka gold mine dur­ing the gold rush. The mem­o­ry of this sad event is reflect­ed in the design of the tow­er.

Its top is crowned with gold­en plates, blue glass­es are asso­ci­at­ed with the flag of rebels, white lines are a mea­sur­ing scale on the ruler of gold min­ers, and a red line on the facade is a sym­bol of spilled blood.

Museums

Melbourne Museum

The largest muse­um in the south­ern hemi­sphere con­sists of 7 main gal­leys, one chil­dren’s gallery and a tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tion hall. In addi­tion, there is a research cen­ter and an IMAX cin­e­ma, which shows films in 3D.

The per­ma­nent exhi­bi­tion fea­tures Egypt­ian mum­mies, dinosaur skele­tons, arti­facts belong­ing to ancient Chi­nese dynas­ties. In oth­er halls, you can learn about the cul­ture and life of the indige­nous Aus­tralian peo­ples.

Captain Cook’s Cottage

Fitzroy Gar­dens is home to James Cook. In fact, the cot­tage does not belong to the leg­endary nav­i­ga­tor, but to his par­ents. How­ev­er, enthu­si­asts are sure that the trav­el­er at least reg­u­lar­ly vis­it­ed it, and at most spent a whole year.

Ini­tial­ly, the house was locat­ed in the Eng­lish vil­lage of Great Ayton. After long nego­ti­a­tions, he was bought from the then mis­tress for 800 pounds and trans­port­ed to Aus­tralia. An Eng­lish gar­den is laid out around the house, the atmos­phere of the Cook era is recre­at­ed in the rooms, and there are even a few things that belonged to his par­ents.

Old Prison

The gloomy build­ing was built in 1841. Noto­ri­ous ban­dits, rob­bers and mur­der­ers were kept in it, death sen­tences were car­ried out here. In 1924, the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty was closed and con­vert­ed into ware­hous­es.

In the 70s, local author­i­ties decid­ed to open a muse­um there to attract tourists. Here are exhib­it­ed per­son­al belong­ings of pris­on­ers, death masks of those exe­cut­ed and sev­er­al plans for escapes that were not des­tined to take place. Any­one can vis­it the cell. They say the prison is haunt­ed by ghosts. And if you’re lucky, you can see a cou­ple in the gloomy cor­ri­dors.

Museum of Gold

The muse­um occu­pies the build­ing of the for­mer Trea­sury, which itself is a his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ment. The con­struc­tion of the munic­i­pal insti­tu­tion was entrust­ed to the bril­liant archi­tect John Clark, who at that time was bare­ly 19 years old. A young man in just a few years erect­ed a grace­ful build­ing in the Renais­sance style.

The muse­um opened in 1994. Its expo­si­tions are devot­ed to the “gold rush” and the his­to­ry of gold min­ing in the coun­try. Nuggets, equip­ment for wash­ing the pre­cious met­al, per­son­al belong­ings of min­ers and impor­tant doc­u­ments of those years are exhib­it­ed here. There are halls where you can learn how Mel­bourne devel­oped — from a small set­tle­ment of colonists to a metrop­o­lis with a pop­u­la­tion of 4 mil­lion.

Cultural attractions

National Gallery of Victoria

This gallery is the largest and old­est in Aus­tralia. Not so long ago, its funds were divid­ed into two parts.

The Gallery of Inter­na­tion­al Art has set­tled in Saint Kildes, in the heart of the cul­tur­al quar­ter, in a his­toric build­ing. Works of world famous artists are exhib­it­ed here: Rem­brandt, Veronese, Rubens and oth­ers.

The Ian Pot­ter Cen­ter occu­pied the exhi­bi­tion com­plex in Fed­er­a­tion Square. Peo­ple come here to enjoy the art of local artists, as well as to see items made by the indige­nous peo­ple of the Green Con­ti­nent.

Cathedral of Saint Paul

The largest Angli­can cathe­dral in Mel­bourne began to be built in 1880, the work was com­plet­ed only 35 years lat­er. Their end was marked by the instal­la­tion of a giant spire. For a long time, the tem­ple remained the tallest build­ing in the city, it could be seen from almost any­where.

Mod­est inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion com­pen­sates for the organ made by the famous mas­ter T.S. Lewis. The musi­cal instru­ment con­sists of 6500 pipes.

Royal Exhibition Center

The Exhi­bi­tion Cen­ter occu­pies a Vic­to­ri­an-style build­ing built in antic­i­pa­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al Exhi­bi­tion of 1880. The build­ing has the sta­tus of a mon­u­ment pro­tect­ed by UNESCO.

The build­ing con­sists of one hall with an area of ​​over 12,000 sq. m and many small rooms. The huge dome above it was built in the image of the dome of the Cathe­dral of San­ta Maria del Fiore in Flo­rence. It was in this build­ing that the inde­pen­dence of Aus­tralia was pro­claimed, and then the gov­ern­ment of the state of Vic­to­ria met with­in the his­tor­i­cal walls for 26 years.

Dur­ing the First World War, the pavil­ion housed a hos­pi­tal, dur­ing the Sec­ond World War — an army camp. In the 50s, they decid­ed to dis­man­tle the dilap­i­dat­ed build­ing, and build offices in its place. The pub­lic did not let com­mer­cial plans come true.

In 1984, the exhi­bi­tion cen­ter was vis­it­ed by Princess Alexan­dra, the cousin of Queen Eliz­a­beth II of Great Britain. She grant­ed him the sta­tus of “roy­al”, which was the impe­tus for the start of recon­struc­tion work.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

The neo-Goth­ic cathe­dral began to be built in 1851, but the “gold rush” that broke out took almost the entire able-bod­ied pop­u­la­tion to the mines. When the gold min­ers returned home, they found that the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty had run out of funds. A long col­lec­tion of mon­ey began, and the tem­ple was final­ly com­plet­ed only in 1939.

The inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion impress­es with splen­dor. Instead of stained-glass win­dows, there are amber glass­es that fill the hall with gold­en light. The floor and the mar­ble altar are dec­o­rat­ed with mosa­ic pan­els made in Italy. On the roof ris­es a cross weigh­ing 1.5 tons — a gift from the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Nature and parks

Port Phillip Marine Park

The water area of ​​the reserve, locat­ed between the Bel­lar­in and Morn­ing­ton penin­su­las, occu­pies approx­i­mate­ly 40 square meters. km. Its ter­ri­to­ry is divid­ed into 6 parts: Swan Bay, Bish­op’s Eye arti­fi­cial for­ti­fi­ca­tion, Mud Islands, Port­sea Hole div­ing site, Lons­dale and Nipin capes.

Coral reefs grow under water, sev­er­al species of marine ani­mals and birds live in the beach area. Also in the park there are a num­ber of objects of cul­tur­al val­ue.

Dandenong National Park

The Dan­de­nong Nature Reserve is locat­ed on the ridge of the same name, not far from Mel­bourne. This beau­ti­ful place is a favorite vaca­tion spot for cit­i­zens.

The park is divid­ed into sev­er­al zones, each of which has its own zest. Here you can walk through the rem­nants of the jun­gle that exist­ed dur­ing the time of the dinosaurs. Once majes­tic trees were trans­formed into fern thick­ets.

The Bunurong and Wuwur­rong tribes lived in the val­ley for sev­er­al thou­sand years. They left behind inter­est­ing draw­ings in the caves.

Many birds live in Sher­brooke For­est — local par­rots are not averse to feast­ing on hands. Well, those who are tired can relax in a guest house in the vil­lage of Sas­safras. An obser­va­tion deck is also equipped there, allow­ing you to enjoy the panoram­ic splen­dor of nat­ur­al beau­ties from a height.

Phillip Island Natural Park

Phillip Island, with its unique ecosys­tem, was declared a nation­al park in 1996. The reserve cov­ers an area of ​​about 2 thou­sand hectares.

It is home to 15 ani­mal species and more than 80 plant species. The main local attrac­tion is the pen­guin colony. Every evening, the “parade” of fun­ny birds return­ing from the sea to their nests attracts many tourists.

Alexandra Gardens

The pic­turesque park is locat­ed on the south bank of the Yarra Riv­er in close prox­im­i­ty to Fed­er­a­tion Square. Once a wood­ed area that was used for graz­ing, it was trans­formed into a city park at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Grad­u­al­ly, the ter­ri­to­ry expand­ed and enno­bled. Today it is a favorite place for cit­i­zens to relax — with alleys for walk­ing, paths for run­ning and cycling, as well as lawns for pic­nics. There are cafes and restau­rants in the park.

King’s Domain

The park with an area of ​​about 36 hectares is locat­ed in the city cen­ter. It was found­ed in 1854, and received its loud name much lat­er — in hon­or of the 100th anniver­sary of the found­ing of Mel­bourne. The park is home to icon­ic land­marks, includ­ing the Gov­ern­ment Build­ing and the Mem­o­ry Memo­r­i­al.

Among the nat­ur­al won­ders are the Cal­abri­an pine, the seeds of which were brought by a sol­dier return­ing from the fields of the First World War, as well as an arch tree. This is a lush fern, from which there are steps to an arti­fi­cial pool. The park has many sculp­tures, paths and walk­ing paths.

Royal Park

The largest park in Mel­bourne with an area of ​​over 190 hectares is locat­ed 5 km from the busi­ness cen­ter. On a vast ter­ri­to­ry there is a golf club, a ten­nis club, count­less crick­et and base­ball fields, there is a path for run­ning and cycling.

Dur­ing the sum­mer, mem­bers of the local astro­nom­i­cal soci­ety can be found in King’s Park watch­ing the stars and comets at night.

Carlton Gardens

The land­scap­ing of this park is con­sid­ered the epit­o­me of Vic­to­ri­an style, with its neat lawns, avenues of majes­tic trees and a car­pet of var­ie­gat­ed plants from Europe and Aus­tralia. On the ter­ri­to­ry of more than 26 hectares, there are many species of ani­mals and birds. Carl­ton Gar­dens hous­es the pavil­ion of the Exhi­bi­tion Cen­ter, as well as the Mel­bourne Muse­um.

Entertainment

Sovereign Hill

The city-muse­um under the open sky, 100 km from Mel­bourne, invites you to plunge into the times of the “gold rush”. Streets and hous­es suc­cess­ful­ly imi­tate the archi­tec­ture of those years.

Hot drinks are poured in saloons, beau­ties dance a perky can­can. Authen­tic­i­ty is added by actors dressed in the fash­ion of the 19th cen­tu­ry. You can ride in a wag­on, shoot at a shoot­ing range, dine in a restau­rant and, final­ly, look into a sou­venir shop.

Ferris wheel “Southern Star”

The attrac­tion is locat­ed in the Dock­land area. The wheel diam­e­ter is 100 m, and the height is almost 130 m. Up to 420 peo­ple can be in 21 cab­ins at the same time.

The South Star makes a full turn in 30–40 min­utes. In the evening, the back­light is turned on, and the wheel flick­ers with thou­sands of lights in the waters of the har­bor. Approx­i­mate­ly 100 mil­lion Aus­tralian dol­lars were spent on the con­struc­tion of the giant.

Zoo

The Zoo­log­i­cal Gar­den, found­ed in 1862, is the old­est in Aus­tralia. At first, it served as a tem­po­rary refuge for pets brought from oth­er con­ti­nents — they under­went vet­eri­nary adap­ta­tion here. Over time, exot­ic ones were added to the usu­al species. Today, the zoo is home to lions, tigers, croc­o­diles, sev­er­al species of pri­mates, ele­phants, giraffes and oth­er fau­na from around the world.

Aquarium

The ship-shaped build­ing is locat­ed on the banks of the Yarra Riv­er — it hous­es an aquar­i­um. Opened in the ear­ly 2000s, it is con­sid­ered one of the best in the world. It con­tains marine fau­na from the south­ern seas and arc­tic lat­i­tudes.

The main attrac­tions are pen­guins, for which ice is reg­u­lar­ly har­vest­ed, and even an arti­fi­cial coral reef with a closed ecosys­tem has been grown. Shows with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of dol­phins and fur seals are reg­u­lar­ly held here.

Princess Theater

This opera house was built in the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tu­ry. The build­ing was repeat­ed­ly rebuilt, and the last recon­struc­tion was car­ried out in 1989. The the­ater has its own ghost — a place in the cen­ter of the hall is always reserved for it, tick­ets for it are not sold.

They say the ghost is the spir­it of the actor Bak­er, who died right on stage dur­ing the per­for­mance of an aria from the opera Faust in 1888.

Queen Victoria Market

Locat­ed in down­town, the Queen Vic­to­ria Mar­ket is the largest in the south­ern hemi­sphere. It has held the palm since its incep­tion in the 19th cen­tu­ry.

Every­thing you can imag­ine is sold here: farm prod­ucts, fruits, veg­eta­bles, seafood, ori­en­tal sweets — and the smell of smoked meats excites the taste buds. Sep­a­rate­ly, you should look at the “glut­ton rows”, where deli­cious dish­es are pre­pared from fresh prod­ucts bought on neigh­bor­ing rows.