Hidden Bars Tour

After a pretty good and long sleep, I headed out into the city again. At the Queen Victoria Markets I treated myself with a good breakfast and then walked a bit around this huge market area. Afterwards, I took the tram 35 to take a little tour around Melbourne downtown. In Melbourne all trams are free in the city centre, and the particularities of tram 35 are: it goes in a loop around the city, interesting information for tourists is provided, and it is operated with historic trams. I did the whole loop for about an hour and then went to Brunswick Street which the guide from the day before had recommended to visit and to go for a bite or a coffee. I had coffee and cake in a nice little coffee shop.In this coffee shop the corona crisis was "visible" for the first time on my whole travel. They only used takeaway cups and did not accept cash anymore because of the virus. Then I made my way through the area and a beautiful park with a dolphin fountain towards the meeting point of the hidden bars tour I had booked and that was supposed to start at 03:00 pm. We were twelve participants and went on the tour with our guide Sara. Pretty much in the beginning we passed a small street called "Meyers Place"😁Sara even told us about a hidden bar in a takeaway pizza place in that street, but we were not going there. The first bar we went to was in a small alley with some streetart. Apparently, it was famous for its Pisco Sour, so I tried it and had a Pisco Sour for the first time. It was good! Our second bar was in China Town. There I had a Singapore Sling, my favourite cocktail. Our next stop was in a very nice old pub. This time I took a beer. The fourth and last bar was even located on one of the main streets of Melbourne. I am not sure if I had recognized it if I had been on my own. We arrived there a bit after 6:00 pm. Sara did not stay very long (it was the official end of the tour), but I had a nice conversation with Chris from Minnesota. His wife and he had come to Melbourne because of the Formula 1 Grand Prix which had been canceled the day before. After two beers, Chris and his wife, an Australian couple, a Dutch woman and I continued to another bar Sara had recommended. It was themed like "Alice in Wonderland", but it was pretty dark so you could not see all the details, but it was nice anyway. It was not our last stop. In fact, we went to Meyers Place then to checkout the hidden bar in the pizza place. Sara had told us, that you have to ask for the "special menu" to get entry to the hidden bar. Well, that somehow did not work. They did not let us in and we went to the bar next door. Then it was time to eat something. We ended up at "Hungry Jacks" the Australian "Burger King". It must have been about 11:00 pm by then. I joined the others for one more beer at a bar the Australians knew from the day before, but then I said goodbye and made my way home to the hostel. After a very nice day I fell asleep in the hostel at about 01:30 am.Read more