Cities – Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne is Australia’s culinary capital with more than 3,500 restaurants serving cuisines from 70 different countries. Melbourne is known for its vibrant coffee culture, with a strong focus on specialty coffee.
On average, Melbourne imports 30 tonnes of coffee beans each day – enough to make 3 million daily cups of coffee. Although, as of 2023, the population of the Melbourne metropolitan area was 5.2 million, so maybe 3 million cups of coffee isn’t as crazy a number as it sounds!
With food, wine and coffee being such a big part of Melbourne’s culture, it’s no surprise that a big part of my time spent in Melbourne was at markets, bakeries, and coffee houses.
I made it my goal to visit as many markets as I could during my short visit. I visited Queen Victoria Market, Prahran Market, and South Melbourne Market. Click the image to read more about the markets.
I also visited the St Kilda Esplanade, which led me to Luna Park and St Kilda Beach!
The St Kilda Breakwater, at the end of the St Kilda Pier, is home to a colony of 1400 Little Penguins. The St Kilda Pier Breakwater is the closest place to view penguins near the Melbourne CBD.
I was lucky enough to see one tiny penguin during my visit! The best time to see the penguins is just after sunset.
I visited several bakeries during my journey through Melbourne, but my must visit spot was Lune Croissanterie. Lune was named the best croissant in the world — yes, you read that right, a croissant in Melbourne ranked better than Paris!
But, surprisingly, the Lune Croissant wasn’t my favorite croissant! That honor went to the pandan croissant at Agathe. You know, a good general rule is – if there is a long line it might be worth waiting for! It should be noted the pandan croissant was fresh out the oven and still warm, that may have given it an unfair advantage.
Here are a few more pastries that I tried during my journey. The Mango Coconut Cream Croissant is from Q Bakery at Prahran Market. The Pistachio Cronut and Fig Danish are from Publique at Queen Victoria Market. The Fig Danish was the best of the bunch.
Melbourne is also known for it’s extensive urban green space. Not least of which is the Royal Botanic Gardens. I was fortunate enough to be staying a short 20 minute walk to the Gardens, through another green space, Fawkner Park. I spent several hours in the gardens, walking and exploring the plant life, sitting and reading, and lastly on a little bus tour. The bus tour took me to the same places that I walked, but it gave me a better understanding of the plants that I was seeing.
Parts of Fern Gully was closed due to presence of the largest bat in Australia
Guilfoyle’s Volcano is a water reservoir, set at the highest point of the gardens. It gravity feeds into the garden irrigation system.
During my little bus tour, this was the most interesting story that I heard:
The Wollemi Pine, affectionately called the ‘Dinosaur Tree’, has defied extinction.
Fossil evidence indicates that between 200 million and 100 million years ago, Wollemi pine was present across all of Australia. A dryer, more flammable continent likely drove the tree to near extinction. A small remnant of the Wollemi Pine remained, hidden in a secluded deep gully, until they were discovered by a canyoning national park worker in 1994. It was discovered that the trees could be successfully cloned. New trees were potted up and distributed throughout the country and, eventually, the world.
Getting around Melbourne was very easy. On my most recent trip, I took an Uber from the Airport to my Airbnb on St. Kilda Road, just South of the Melbourne CBD (Central Business District). From there, everywhere I wanted to go could be accessed by Tram or walking.
The city’s Free Tram Zone extends from Queen Victoria Market to Docklands, Spring Street, Flinders Street Station, and Federation Square, if you are only travelling within this area you do not need a myki card. My Airbnb was outside the Free Tram Zone so I needed the card. It was easy to add a mobile card to my Google Wallet.
For me, it was a great location. I could walk to the Royal Botanic Gardens, several markets, plus St Kilda Beach and Lake Albert Park.
The park was beautiful, but it is fenced all around with just a few entrances so make sure to know where the entrances are before you head there (a lesson I learned the hard way).
I enjoyed sitting by the lake and it has walking path all the way around (a 3 mile loop).
During my visit Lake Albert Park was being prepared for an upcoming F1 race.
At the time of this writing, I’ve been to Melbourne twice. The first time for a little less than a week and the second for 9 days. But even only being here for such a short amount of time, I believe that Melbourne is a city that I would be happy to live in.
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