Melbourne

A collage of Melbourne

Melbourne is a great city and between tennis matches at Melbourne Park we found time to see a fair bit of it!

Christie and Jay already had been in Melbourne for a day when we arrived, so they quickly showed us around.  Our first stop was for lunch at a restaurant underneath a bridge over the Yarra River.  Then they led us through the laneways that run throughout the city and are filled with shops and restaurants.  We wandered through Chinatown and a hot rod show at the Royal Exhibition Building before a great dinner at Movida.  And that was just the first day! 

St. Kilda, a beautiful beachside Melbourne suburb, was a highlight.  We had a fabulous meal at a restaurant right along the beach.  The trip to get there by tram was a bit interesting, because it was packed to the brim and we had no idea where to get off.  The tram made lots of stops that were not on the map, so finally we just hopped off at a stop only to realize that it was about five stops too early – oh well!  After a delicious dinner and beautiful sunset, I had a meringue the size of a grapefruit – amazing!  After a few weeks I have realized that David and I are eating as if we don’t know when or where our next meal will come from – I guess because we really don’t.  But we certainly aren’t going hungry!

The prices for hotels in Melbourne during the tennis tournament were outrageous, so we found a private room at a hostel.  We didn’t realize that it did not come with A/C or our own bathroom, but it worked out fine.  One funny moment came when we went into the TV lounge to watch the end of the Nadal-Hewitt match one evening.  We walked in to find a very elderly woman snoring VERY loudly.  It was our only option to see the match, so we settled in, but we certainly gave each other several looks over the next hour that said “is this for real?” and got a good laugh out of it.     

From left to right:

Picture 1: Flinder Street Station.

Picture 2: Watching tennis on the big screen in Federation Square.

Picture 3: The free City Center tram.

Picture 4: Sunset at St. Kilda.

Picture 5: Outside of Donovans with Jay and Christie after a great dinner.

Picture 6: The University of Melbourne.

Picture 7: Walking along the Yarra River.

Picture 8: A laneway.

Picture 9: City lights reflected in the Yarra River.