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Published: November 14th 2005
For this entry, we are going to keep the text short and provide you with a lot of photos. This is mainly because we don't have tons to say about Melbourne and I'm not really in the mood right now to write a novel. So with that said.....
We thought Melbourne was an average big city that you can find in a lot of countries. It did have an international flair from the people to the food. We included a few photos of the different food cuisines that we had to give you an idea of what can be found there. We stayed at a hotel near Chinatown, so we got to walk past those restaurants most every day, but we don't have any photos from there. I think that's because we are usually so anxious for our dim sum that we just dig in!
The city itself is very architecturally diverse in that very old buildings exist right next to very new ones. And from the photos you can tell that the new buildings here can be very modern and contemporary in style. We heard that some of the natives really like that the two styles co-exist and
others dislike the newer stuff.
We most liked the tours outside of the city. One day we did a winery tour to the Yarra Valley. We went to four vineyards and were able to sample a variety of wines. I don't think Doug or I sampled every one at each winery, but we each tried 20-25. We had a chaffeur, so we had to indulge. I bought two bottles, both of which we have now consumed with dinners. No worries, I have already bought two more to replace those. On the tour we also got lunch at the Domain Chandon vineyard. Doug had a chicken breast in a creamy wine, pesto sauce and I had John Dory (the fish, not the guy). We got all of this for the bargain-basement price of 85 AUD, which is about $55 US.
Our other tour was a 12-hour tour of the Great Ocean Road. As the name implies, this was great, as we got to see a variety of scenery, animals and birds. It culminated with a sunset at the Twelve Apostles. We included lots of photos of this as it was the highlight of the trip to Melbourne. Our driver
got us there about a half hour before sunset, so we were able to watch the lighting changes on the rocks and in the sky. This is a must see for anybody who goes to Melbourne, although, you have to be lucky enough to have a clear day.
Other things we also enjoyed were the tour of the Old Melbourne Gaol, which is the jail. We were again lucky because we got to see a performance of the Ned Kelly story, which provided us with a lot of useful information on his life and was presented in an entertaining way. We also toured the Parliament building. We liked this mostly because of our tour guide. She was really funny and inserted smart-ass remarks and what I would call "unofficial" commentary.
Other than the winery tour, there were no new beverages that we tried. I already mentioned the wide variety of food that is in Melbourne, especially stuff from the Asian countries. Our favorites were the dim sum, Japanese and Indian meals.
That's it for now. We're off to Tasmania for a week and don't have any idea of what to expect!!!
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anonymous
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Wow again! Is it me, or does some of Australia look like Ireland? Only a few more weeks to go, right? Make the most of it!