Things to Do and Places to Visit in Melbourne City

What Makes Melbourne Attractive?

The residents of Melbourne is rich multicultural blend from many different nationalities.  This diversity bring a rich mixture of cultures, cuisines and music to the city, resulting in plenty of things to do and see in Melbourne.

Melbourne city was started in 1835 after a failed start in 1803.  It was the gold rush era between 1851 and late 1860s that kicked start the development of Melbourne.

The architecture of the gold rush era, which still remains today and are protected, give Melbourne a rich character and interesting places to visit. These architecture blending in with the modern high rise buildings make Melbourne even more attractive.

 

 

 

 

The Melbourne City Centre streets layout was designed with a grid system.  It’s called Hoddle Grid, after its designer Robert Hoddle in 1837.

The Hoddle Grid is a layout of main streets alternating with lanes in a grid format.  This layout resulted in a system of alleyways.

 

Today these alleyways are populated with cafes, bars, restaurants and street arts.

These are what make Melbourne one of the most unique cities in the world.

 

There are plenty of things to do and see along these alleyways and also plenty of food to try.

 

Melbourne is also a top sporting city.  It hosts the Australian Open tennis, which bring in many visitors from all over the world.  These world class tennis players love to come back to Melbourne year after year.

 

It also hosts the Formula One World Championship Grand Prix.  The Australian Grand Prix is the first round of the world yearly championship.

Best Way to See Melbourne

The streets layout of Melbourne and the tramway network, makes it very easy and convenient to move around Melbourne.

The Melbourne tramway network is the largest urban tramway network in the world covering 250 kilometres of track.

The best way to see Melbourne is to walk, cycle and ride the tram.

 Walking Tours of Melbourne

The City of Melbourne has done a wonderful job in providing informations to tourists.  Visitor information centres are located in Federation Square, Bourke Street Mall and Fitzroy Gardens.

There are also City Ambassadors in their distinctive red uniforms, who you can seek assistance with directions, public transport enquiries, events and much more.

In these visitor information centres, you can get free maps and tour guides.  One of the things to do while in Melbourne, is to pick up one of these maps and do the walking tour.

To help you decide which of the walking tours you would like to do, we have posted a very comprehensive pictorial guide on what you can see during these walking tours.

The walking tours we have posted are listed below and you can view the post by clicking on the links.

1. “A Walk In the Park.”  To view, click here.
2. “Secret Gardens.”  To view, click here.
3. “On the Waterfront.”  To view, click here.
4. “Arcades and Lanes.”  To view, click here.
5. “The Cosmopolitan.”  To view, click here.
6. “Elegant Enclave.”  To view click here.

Melbourne Tramways

From 1 January 2015, a free tram zone was created in Melbourne city. Traveling on tram in this tram zone is entirely free.

 

 

 

 

With this free tram ride, it is even more convenient for tourists to travel within the city.  Just hop on and get off.

You can download a pdf copy of the free tram zone map here.

There is another free tram that goes around the city.  It is the City Circle Tram route 35.  The Melbourne City Circle tram is a free service, which is a circular route passing through major tourist attractions in the central business district.

We have posted an article on the major attractions you can visit while traveling on City Circle tram route 35.  Click here to view the article.

Free Walking Tour

Last but not least, we have to mentioned the Free Walking Tour of Melbourne.  The walking tour is done by a group of volunteers, who are passionate and knowledgable about Melbourne city.  At the end of the tour, you tip what you think the tour is worth.

We have posted a post about them here.

Street Arts of Melbourne

Visit to Melbourne will not be complete without visiting the street arts of Melbourne.

Hunting for street arts in Melbourne is easy and in fact the City of Melbourne even provide a map on where to look for street arts in the city.

We too will assist you on where to look for street arts.  Click here to view the post.

 

 

The list of things to do and places to visit in Melbourne city is very long. It’s impossible to list everything in one post.

We hope to list more things to do and places to visit in future posts.

Stay tune.