Melbourne, at the head of Port Phillip Bay, is Australia's second largest city and the capital of the south-eastern state of Victoria.Melbourne is Australia’s cultural capital, with Victorian-era architecture, extensive shopping, museums, galleries, theatres, and large parks and gardens. Its 4-million residents are both multicultural and sports-mad.Reasons to visit Melbourne include major sporting events, using it as a base for exploring surrounding regions such as the Grampians National Park, The Great Ocean Road, and visiting Phillip Island to view the penguin parade. Many UK visitors come to Melbourne for tours of filming locations of the TV soap opera Neighbours.
Central Melbourne
City Centre (Docklands)
Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) and historical core north of the Yarra River, including the new, cosmopolitan Docklands precinct to the west. Innumerable great restaurants, clubs, pubs. The centre of Melbourne throbs with life, reflecting the resident's pride in the fact that it is regularly voted "the world's most liveable city". Excellent tram, bus and rail system makes getting around this and other areas simple.
Southbank
Entertainment, (including a superb art and theatre complex, ballet, opera, and more), fine dining, plus some inexpensive cafes and the vast Crown Casino and entertainment complex. River trips depart from Southbank.
St Kilda
Sunny beaches and a great restaurant, bar and nightlife scene. Very gay friendly, too.
South Melbourne (Port Melbourne, Albert Park)
Includes the old ports of Melbourne, as well as the historic Clarendon Street and town centre.
Inner north (Carlton, Parkville, North Melbourne)
The University district, as well as Lygon Street, world famous for its authentic Italian culture and cuisine.
Inner east (Fitzroy, Richmond, Collingwood)
Working-class and Bohemian quarter, with many trendy boutiques, some of Melbourne's best ethnic cuisine - especially Vietnamese - and an amazing range of inner-city pubs full of character.
Stonnington (Toorak, Prahran, South Yarra)
Expensive, upper-class neighbourhood of Melbourne, with high-end shopping and dining. The place to grab a fashion bargain and to be seen.
Metropolitan Melbourne
Eastern suburbs
Stretching from almost inner suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn and Camberwell in Booroondara to the outer cities like Maroondah and the Dandenong Ranges.
Northern suburbs
Covering suburbs like Tullamarine, Broadmeadows, South Morang, Epping, Bundoora and Nillumbik Shire.
Western suburbs
Includes areas like Altona, Williamstown, Point Cook, Footscray in Maribyrnong, Werribee in Wyndham, Caroline Springs, Sunshine, Melton, Keilor and Sydenham.
South-eastern suburbs
Spread along the coast of Port Philip Bay and covers areas like Brighton, Elwood, Sandringham and the cities of Frankston and Dandenong. Its main attraction is the beach along the bay.
Notable inner city suburbs
Below are some of the major inner-city suburbs and localities. They are from the old district structure for Melbourne, and will eventually be merged into their respective article above.
City Centre— Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) and historical core north of the Yarra River, including the Southbank district immediately south of the Yarra and the new Docklands precinct to the west.
Albert Park— A suburb of Port Phillip and Home of Melbourne's F1 Grand Prix circuit.
South Melbourne— Home of the shopping strip known as Clarendon Street, South Melbourne in Port Phillip also has the popular South Melbourne Market, which first opened in 1867 and features food, clothing, footwear and much more.
St Kilda— Suburb of Port Phillip on Port Philip Bay with its famous Sunday art market, and home to many backpacker hostels and cafes.
Brunswick— Inner northern suburb in Moreland. The "new" Fitzroy.
Carlton— In northern Melbourne, the traditional home of Melbourne's Italian community and the University of Melbourne.
Collingwood— Working class suburb of Yarra with funky shopping, pubs and live music on Smith and Johnston Streets.
Fitzroy— The Bohemian quarter of Yarra filled with interesting restaurants and trendy boutiques.
Richmond— Also part of Yarra, North Richmond is Melbourne's Little Vietnam while the southern part of the district, Bridge Road, is famous for low price fashion outlets.
Footscray— Working class suburb of Maribyrnong, cool, multicultural, cheap markets, dozens of Vietnamese and East African shops and restaurants.
Yarraville— Quiet, inner-western suburb of Maribyrnong with well-preserved Victorian architecture and a funky, artsy vibe.
Prahran— Favourite shopping district in Stonnington with Chapel Street as its main attraction.
South Yarra— South of the river in Stonnington, with high-end shopping and dining, it covers South Yarra and Toorak.
Williamstown— Old, maritime-styled suburb of Hobsons Bay with many cafes situated along the foreshore.
Melbourne Zoo
The Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens, commonly known as the Melbourne Zoo, contains more than 320 animal species from Australia and around the world. The zoo is 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) north of the centre of Melbourne. It is accessible via Royal Park station on the Upfield railway line, and is also accessible via tram routes 55 and 19, as well as by bicycle on the Capital City Trail. Bicycles are not allowed inside the zoo itself.
The Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens is a full institutional member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums
Melbourne Zoo is Australia's oldest zoo and was modeled on London Zoo. The zoo was opened on 6 October 1862 at the Royal Park site of 55-acre (22 ha) on land donated by the City of Melbourne. Before this, animals were housed at the botanical gardens in Melbourne.
Initially the zoo was important for the acclimatisation of domestic animals recovering from their long trip to Australia. It was only with the appointment of Albert Alexander Cochrane Le Souef in 1870 that more exotic animals were procured for public display, and the gardens and picnic areas were developed.
Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park
Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park is a 25-acre (10 ha) biopark within the Pearcedale Conservation Park located at Pearcedale on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne, Australia. It aims to display the fauna that was found in the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port Biosphere Reserve prior to European settlement. The park is open all year except on Christmas Day. The sanctuary, as part of Pearcedale Conservation Park, is an institutional member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA). It is ECO Certified at the Ecotourism level by Ecotourism Australia.
Moonlit Sanctuary operates evening walks, which are an environmental immersion experience. A guide takes visitors on a walk through natural bushland where the guide spotlights a variety of nocturnal animals, many of them endangered. The guide gives talks about the animals, and answers visitors’ questions. Visitors come into close contact with the animals in their natural habitats and can observe their natural behaviours. This is different visitor experience from a normal zoo visit where visitors view a large number of species for short periods of time and rarely bother reading signs. Moonlit Sanctuary visitors spend longer periods of time with a small number of animals, and receive a lot of information from the accompanying guide
Animals kept at the Sanctuary include spot-tailed quolls, southern bettongs, squirrel gliders, long-nosed potoroo, red-bellied pademelon, spinifex hopping mouse, fat-tailed dunnart, brush-tailed bettong, red-necked wallaby, feathertail glider, sugar glider, Tasmanian masked owl, tawny frogmouth, Cape Barren goose, bush thicknee, Victorian carpet python, blue-tongue lizard, and Gippsland water-dragon. In total over 200 animals representing 60 different species call the sanctuary home.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known simply as "The G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the 10th-largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, the largest cricket ground by capacity, and has the tallest light towers of any sporting venue. The MCG is within walking distance of the city centre and is served by the Richmond railway station, Richmond, and the Jolimont railway station, East Melbourne. It is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct.
Since it was built in 1853, the MCG has been in a state of almost constant renewal. It served as the centrepiece stadium of the 1956 Summer Olympics, the 2006 Commonwealth Games and two Cricket World Cups: 1992 and 2015. It is also famous for its role in the development of international cricket; it was the venue for both the first Test match and the first One Day International, played between Australia and England in 1877 and 1971 respectively. The annual Boxing Day Test is one of the MCG's most popular events. Referred to as "the spiritual home of Australian rules football", it hosts AFL matches in the winter, with at least one game (though usually more) held there each round. The stadium fills to capacity for the AFL Grand Final.
Home to the National Sports Museum, the MCG has hosted other major sporting events, including International rules football matches between Australia and Ireland, international rugby union matches, State of Origin series (rugby league), FIFA World Cup qualifiers and international friendly matches. Concerts and other cultural events are also held at the venue.
Until the 1970s, more than 120,000 people sometimes crammed into the MCG—the record crowd standing at around 130,000 for a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in 1959, followed by 121,696 for the 1970 VFL Grand Final. Grandstand redevelopments and occupational health and safety legislation have now limited the maximum seating capacity to approximately 95,000 with an additional 5000 standing room capacity, bringing the total capacity to 100,024.
The MCG is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register and was included on the Australian National Heritage List in 2005. Journalist Greg Baum called it "a shrine, a citadel, a landmark, a totem" that "symbolises Melbourne to the world".
Federation Square is a mixed-use development in the inner city of Melbourne, covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred on two major public spaces: open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium), built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It is located at intersection between Flinders Street and Swanston Street/St Kilda Road in Melbourne's Central Business District, adjacent to Melbourne's busiest railway station.
Melbourne's first public square, an initiative of the Melbourne City Council was the City Square which dates back to 1968 was considered by many to be a planning failure. Its redevelopment in the 1990s failed to address serious flaws in its design as a public space and it was during this decade that the first plans for a new square were hatched by the Victorian state government
The site selected was immediately south of the Hoddle Grid and included the Princes Gate Towers of the former Gas and Fuel Corporation, Jolimont Yard and the Princes Bridge railway station (which was itself the former site of a 19th-century morgue). The government sought to remove what were considered to be two of Melbourne's great eyesores, demolishing the 1960s Gas and Fuel Corporation buildings which obstructed a vista of heritage buildings along Flinders Street including St Paul's Cathedral.
