Melbourne
Travel Advice for Seniors: Melbourne
We bypassed Sydney to start our Australian holiday in Melbourne, as we would be revisiting Sydney at New Years. However, we did have a surge of excitement flying over the Harbor Bridge to get to the airport in Sydney to catch our flight to Melbourne!
We began our three-and-a-half-week tour through the center and eastern parts of Australia in Melbourne. Australia is a huge country, and we were only able to see a small part of it on this trip. Just a good reason to go back!
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the state of Victoria. While three days is probably enough to see Melbourne’s main sights, we opted for a week so that we could fit in three full day excursions out of the city to some of the sights in the area.
We arrived at lunchtime and walked to Federation Square to get our bearings and then visited nearby Queen Victoria Market. Two main highlights of Melbourne before calling it a day and heading to our hotel for some much-needed rest after a very long flight.
Federation Square abuts the Yarra River in the middle of downtown Melbourne and is across from the iconic Flinders Street Station. The Square is the place for city-wide celebrations and gatherings as well as a gateway to the arts area. We saw several artists and others during the week and a city festival on the weekend.
Queen Victoria Market is a must-see for anyone remotely interested in souvenir shopping! Besides being a major city landmark, it has been in use since 1878. It’s about 17 acres of open-air shops under a roof structure and has just about one of every kind of shop you can think of inside! We thoroughly enjoyed the experience. And yes, you can bargain, at least a little bit!
After an early night, we woke refreshed and ready for more exploration. First stop, Melbourne Museum, a natural and cultural history museum, to get some background on the country and its many cultures. The museum showcases Australian and Victorian social history, Aboriginal cultures, science and the environment. It takes a couple of hours to walk through depending on your level of interest. Don’t miss the blue whale skeleton, Dinosaur Walk and Phar Lap, Australia’s greatest racehorse. When we toured there was a great exhibition on aboriginal art.
Also in the general area of the Museum is the Royal Exhibition Building situated in the beautiful Carlton Gardens. The Royal Exhibition Building is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was built in 1879–1880, and still in use today. Carlton Gardens is a lovely stroll through Victorian-styled gardens replete with fountains, native and European trees and wide expanses of lawn. It is also part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Note that we visited in December, which was the beginning of summer in Australia, so fortunately for us many of the flowers and plants were in good form.
Our third day was cathedral day! We started at St Paul’s Cathedral, an Anglican church and seat of the Archbishop of Melbourne. It opened in 1891 and is still in use today. It’s neo-gothic transitional style towers over the city and the inside houses a magnificent organ, Persian tile and beautiful stained glass.
Next up was St. Patrick’s. It is home to the Catholic Archbishop in Victoria. Building began in 1858 and finished ten years later. It is built in the Gothic Revival style and was named after Ireland’s patron saint as at the time there were a great deal of Irish in Melbourne. It is worth a stop to check out the beautiful interiors. It is still in use today.
A word on cathedrals….some of the most pleasant and memorable experiences in our travels have been around churches. For example, in Melbourne we attended church on Christmas Eve to hear the entire suite of Handel’s Messiah played live. We have also attended New Year’s Eve service in St Paul’s in London for a brass band concert and blessing and attended an organ recital at the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavik to name a few. It is well worth checking out the schedules of any churches you will be visiting to see if there are any events coming up. Most of the concerts are light on religion and heavy on music. You may surprise yourself by how much you enjoy it!
Also a word on accessibility in Melbourne…most of it is fairly accessible including transportation and major attractions and sights. There are some hills in the city, but it was not to tiring getting around.
Treasury Gardens were our next stop, one of the state’s oldest public gardens. Gardens are heritage-listed and began around 1851.Beautiful fountains, trees, flowers and birds. We love to walk through gardens and Australian cities have them in abundance!
Between day trips, which I’ll cover in separate articles, we also visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Anzac War Memorial and the National Gallery.
The Royal Botanic Garden was a highlight of our stay in Melbourne. It is a large Garden that offers walks and has a Café/Teahouse. Very old trees, lakes and plenty of well-manicured beds are on view for a nice slow stroll. The Gardens are accessible. We stopped part way through our walk for tea. It is the Australian version of tea featuring scones that were more bread-like as opposed to traditional English scones. However, the clotted cream and fresh strawberry preserves were still the same! What could be better…combining two of our favorite things to do…tea and Botanic Gardens!
We stopped by the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) War Memorial and Shrine of Remembrance. Originally built to honor those from Victoria who served in World War I, it is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in any war. Yearly, Australia has an ANZAC day, honoring veterans and there are ANZAC memorials in most major cities. Interesting, there is also such a thing as an ANZAC cookie, which we tried and found to be delicious. It is said that these cookies were made especially to be sent overseas as they didn’t spoil rapidly.
The National Gallery of Victoria or NGV is another “must-see” in Melbourne. It is the most popular and oldest gallery in the country and is an excellent place to begin your education in aboriginal art. It also features artwork from Europe, Asia, US and Oceania. Plan to spend 2-3 hours to take it all in. Don’t miss the aboriginal art exhibition and the many well-known French Impressionist and Renaissance works.
Melbourne is a great place to start your trip to Australia. It is convenient for several great day trips that really show you what the country is about. Seeing koalas and kangaroos in the wild, wine country and the many sights and wildlife along the south coast are daytrips that we did out of Melbourne. Instead of just hitting the highlights at Uluru, Sydney and Cairns, throw in a few extra days to get away from the heavily touristed areas and enjoy the real Australia!
Where we stayed: Novatel Melbourne, breakfast included.
How we got there: Flew from US to Melbourne via Sydney then private transport to hotel. This was part of a three-week private tour through Australia. We began in Melbourne and ended in Sydney for New Years’ Eve.
General Accessibility Information: Major tourist sights, hotels and transportation in most major cities is accessible. Further, several hiking trails are accessible. See AllTrails’ wheelchair-friendly trail guide.Call in advance to verify and make specialty arrangements.See our sections on specialty apps and accessible travel for more on accessibility assistance.
