Explore Melbourne and around
Seen from across the river, Melbourne’s CBD (Central Business District) presents a spectacular modern skyline; what you notice from close up, however, are the florid nineteenth-century facades, grandiose survivors of the great days of the goldrush and after. The former Royal Mint on William Street near Flagstaff Gardens is one of the finest examples, but the main concentrations are to the south on Collins Street and along Spring Street to the east. At the centre of the CBD, trams jolt through the busy but somewhat tired-looking Bourke Street Mall. A stone’s throw from these central thoroughfares, narrow lanes, squares and arcades with quaint, hole-in-the-wall cafés, small restaurants, shops and boutiques add a cosy and intimate feel to the city.
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The Immigration Museum
The Immigration Museum
Housed in the beautifully restored Old Customs House, the Immigration Museum builds a vivid picture of immigration history through personal stories, music, moving images, light effects and interactive screens, evoking the experiences of being a migrant on a square-rigger in the 1840s, a passenger on a steamship at the beginning of the twentieth century and a postwar refugee from Europe. In the Tribute Garden, the outdoor centrepiece of the museum, a film of water flows over polished granite on which are engraved the names of 7000 migrants to Victoria, symbolizing the passage over the seas. The names of all the Koorie people living in Victoria prior to white settlement are listed separately at the entrance to the garden.
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Chinatown
Chinatown
Located at the east end of Little Bourke Street between Exhibition and Swanston street, Melbourne’s Chinatown is Australia’s oldest continuous Chinese settlement. It began with a few boarding houses in the 1850s (when the goldrushes attracted Chinese people in droves, many from the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong) and grew as the gold began to run out and Chinese fortune-seekers headed back to the city. Today the area still has a low-rise, narrow-laned, nineteenth-century character, and it’s packed with restaurants and stores.
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State Library of Victoria
State Library of Victoria
The State Library of Victoria is a splendid example of Victorian architecture, and houses the state’s largest public research and reference library. The interior has been painstakingly refurbished and is well worth a visit, in particular the Cowen Gallery with a permanent display of paintings illustrating the changing look of Melbourne and Victoria; the La Trobe Reading Room with its imposing domed roof; and the Dome Galleries, which vividly tell the history of Victoria. The library houses a trove of paintings and rare and antiquarian books and newspapers, along with the deed of land purchase by John Batman from the Dugitalla Aborigines, Ned Kelly’s armour, and the famous rage-filled Jerilderie letter, which inspired Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel The True History of the Kelly Gang. There’s also a branch of the excellent Readings bookshop, and a Chess Collection; with almost 12,000 chess-related items it is reputedly one of the largest public collections in the world.
