Travel to Melbourne, Top Melbourne Attractions

Shaped by immigration, gold rushes and bustling commerce, Melbourne has more recently become a city of art, design and gourmet experiences. An easygoing approach to multiculturalism and an insatiable appetite for the best of everything pervades the city’s leafy avenues and charming laneways. Melbourne’s many restaurants, hotels, attractions and festivals offer something for every taste. All a Melbourne vacationer needs to uncover its secrets is a healthy curiosity and comfortable shoes.

A Little History

The city of Melbourne was founded in 1835, and a bloke called Robert Hoddle began to plan the city in 1837. He must have foreseen a future population that loved nature and was obsessed with sports, but he also must have wanted everything a big city has to offer to go with it. Wide boulevards, secret laneways and abundant parkland bordering the city center continue to define Melbourne’s relaxed attitudes and sense of space.

The discovery of gold in Victoria in the early 1850s saw Melbourne’s wealth and population skyrocket, and the city is peppered with magnificent buildings built on the back of the gold rush.

 

• Hosier Lane has become a popular tourist stop in Melbourne thanks to the laneway’s graffiti and street art.

Mark Chew/Tourism Victoria

In the last century Melbourne, like the rest of Australia, received large numbers of immigrants who turned their backs on battered homelands. Each nationality quickly sought to establish its identity in their new home, and the result is the cultural and gastronomic diversity Melbourne celebrates today.

Melbourne Today

In the City

In the early 1980s, the suburban dream began to reverse and low inner-city housing prices became attractive housing alternatives. Melburnians rushed back to the city in droves to live in warehouses hidden down laneways and apartments in lovely but largely empty Victorian and Art Deco buildings. An infrastructure that would soon be the talk of the town sprang up to feed and entertain them. Coffee became espresso, sandwiches became panini, and vodka and orange became a Dirty Martini. Restaurants, cafés, boutique shops and music venues of all kinds began to appear.

 

• The City Circle Tram is free way to navigate Melbourne’s Central Business District.

Courtesy of the Melbourne CVB

Around the City

The surrounding suburban pockets have embraced the concept of specialization. Carlton was shaped by Italian migrants, Richmond is Little Vietnam and Fitzroy is hipster headquarters. Lebanese, African and Turkish migrants inhabit Brunswick, while South Yarra caters to cash-rich fashionistas. In St Kilda, the rich and famous rub shoulders with the down-and-out in this popular bayside suburb. Jump on a Metlink Metropolitan tram to discover these many different faces of Melbourne.

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