Brisbane, Australia
My third visit to Australia in 2025 was to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland and the 3rd most populous city in Australia. I’ve only been to Brisbane twice, both times it had a lot of construction going on. Brisbane strikes me as a city that is always growing and changing.
When the city hosted the 1988 Expo it began to redefine it’s image from a quiet town into the more vibrant city it is today, with a variety of global food options and entertainment sites.
Brisbane is slated to host the 2032 Olympics, I can’t help but wonder what effect that will have on this adaptive city.
The joke in Brisbane is that the “bin chicken” will be the mascot, we’ll just have to watch and see!
The Brisbane River winds through the City of Brisbane. There are 17 major bridges that cross the river – some for cars, some for public transportation, and some just for pedestrians.
The ferry quickly became my favorite form of transportation. For .50 cents I could quickly travel on the CityCat ferry from UQ St Lucia to Northshore Hamilton and anywhere in between! It was also a great way to just relax and enjoy the city skyline.
I chose an Airbnb that was easy walking distance to Central Brisbane and public transportion. It was only a couple of blocks from Roma Street Train Station and also very near to Roma Street Parklands, a beautiful urban park.
On my first night at the Airbnb, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a nightmare Airbnb experience. They were demolishing the buildings next door — during the nighttime hours (10pm-5am) — yikes!
7 May 2025
9 May 2025
15 May 2025
But, as it turned out, I loved watching the demolition progress and the location of the Airbnb was so perfect that this became one of my best Airbnb stays (thank you earplugs!)
This was a two week visit to Brisbane. I was meeting up with some friends that we met in 2018 on a cruise to Antarctica. We had so many fun things planned, including two day trips — a one day trip to the Gold Coast and a one day trip to the Sunshine Coast. One of the best things about Brisbane is that it is a jumping off point to so many great spots.
I am still working on the posts for these two day trips, once they are completed you will be able to read my posts about these trips by clicking the photo’s below.
Sunshine Coast
Gold Coast
There are few must do sights within Brisbane that I would highly recommend.
South Bank Parklands is home to a number of museums and performance venues as well as a great place to sit, relax, and people watch.
The Brisbane sign is a fun spot to sit and people watch. I managed to catch the sign without anyone in the picture, but I watched people climb into and onto the letters in every way imaginable.
South Bank was the site of the 1988 Expo and the Nepalese Pagoda, the only exhibit remaining, is lovely.
There is also an inner-city, man-made beach in South Bank (Streets Beach) that was closed during my visit. We were able to see Streets Beach when we were in Brisbane a few years ago so I included that photo here.
I saw at least 20 Australian Water Dragons as I walked along the waterfront. I was really glad I didn’t take a break and sit on the wall!
A drive up to Mt Coot-tha Summit is well worth it for the amazing city view!
There is also a lovely cafe at the Mt Coot-tha summit, just make sure the bush turkey doesn’t steal your sweet treat!
Another spot with amazing views is Kangaroo Point Lookout. Last time we were in Brisbane we had a delicious brunch overlooking the river and city skyline.
Howard Stern Wharf is another great spot on the River. It sits below the Story Bridge. There are many restaurants and bars including a massive brewery – Felon Brewing. I went there twice during my visit, once for lunch and the second time to try out the brewery.
When visiting any city, I love to explore the local markets. Brisbane has City Markets on Wednesday and Thursday both of which were wonderful for trying some local goodies. Click the photos below to be taken to posts about the City Markets in Brisbane.
The City Markets were great, but Brisbane has such an amazing grocery store, called Harris Farm Markets, that is as good as going to a local market and is open every day!
Since I was meeting up with friends in Brisbane my social calendar was very full!
We went to the local club, the Royal Hotel Nundah, for Pizza and Trivia Night. While we didn’t win, we did do quite well at trivia (no thanks to me :-)
We planned a dinner at Ahmet’s Turkish restaurant in Southbank (the area of Brisbane that was transformed following the 1988 Exhibition). Our reservation was at 7pm, but we went early for live music at the Melbourne Street Green.
We got off at the wrong train station, South Bank instead of South Brisbane, so we walked back through the Friday Night Market – I snapped a couple of pictures but didn’t spend any time looking around.
We then stopped at a traditional Australian pub for a pint before heading off to eat a Turkish feast (which I forgot to take pictures of!)
We were walking back to the train station and as we passed the Emporium Hotel, a luxury hotel known for it’s rooftop bar and pool, Rachel said “let’s go up and take a look at the view!” So up we went! She sweet talked the bouncer into letting us into the bar, just to take a picture and out onto the pool deck (even though it was closed) — yay Rachel!
After our Turkish feast, we thought we’d never want to eat again, but the next day that went out the window with a visit to Eat Street Northshore. This is an amazing venue that is exactly what I love! For a small entrance fee you can listen to different styles of music performed by local musicians and purchase food from 6 of the world’s 7 continents. This was such an amazing place it got it’s own post!
But wait… there’s more!
The Outback Spectacular is a touristy show that many Queenslanders take visitors to see. In the United States we have a similar show called Medieval Times. The dinner theatre show made great use of horses, cows, digital screens and vehicles and was very fun to watch.
The next night we went to see the Ballet of Lights: Sleeping Beauty. While we enjoyed it, we agreed that we wouldn’t do it again. The lighted costumes were not nearly as impressive as we had hoped. However, the tree I walked by on my way to the theatre was very impressive!
The Comedy Festival was going on during my visit so I decided to take myself out to the Good Chat Comedy Club. Happy hour chicken wings and comedy pair well!
My daughter arrived on Friday evening and the next day we did a bakery tour of 10 Brisbane bakeries. Between the 4 of us we had an amazing selection of sweet and savory pastries!
Click the photo or here if you want to find out what all these goodies are!
Later that evening the younger generation went clubbing in Fortitude Valley (no photos of that, but they had a good time). The older folks went on a cocktail crawl. Unfortunately, I was so concerned with making sure that my daughter had her passport as ID that I neglected to bring my own. And even though I definitely look old enough to drink, most bars in Fortitude Valley would not let me in without ID. So I left Rachel and Michael to continue the crawl while I went home and crawled into bed. Although I only got to go into a few places, it was super fun and I am not a night owl so I was happy to get home to bed.
We did get to go to Felon Brewery and listen to a great tribute band and we got into one other bar where I was able to order a Last Word, my favorite cocktail.
We also got into Viscosity, but after looking at the menu for 10 minutes we decided this was not the place for us!
Two weeks in Brisbane, jam packed with lots of fun activities!
There was a lot to love about Brisbane!
Although it is hilly, it has been one of the easiest places to get around that I’ve been to in Australia. Nearly everywhere that there was a large change in elevation there were both stairs and an elevator. (Unfortunately Google Maps will take you to the stairs, but with my bad knees I appreciated the elevators when I could find them)
Unfortunately, the summer weather would be too hot for me! But what a great place to visit in the winter. Its easy travelling distance to the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast make it a great holiday location.
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