Melbourne, Australia

Calm at last as we sailed into Philips Bay to the Port of Melbourne. We walked a lovely 3-4 miles or so into the city center and then took the free circular tram around the town to see what we wanted to see. That is the one thing that is really nice about Australia. All the cities have a free bus or ferry system around the downtown to encourage walking and not taking your car into town. The city is great and has a vibrancy like Sydney but more of a cultural feel. The architecture is funky and very eclectic and there is art everywhere. The downtown is great with a broad river walk full of life and energy as well as cool buildings. Economist magazine has named the city the "Most Livable City" for like 4 years straight and we could see why.
We ate lunch at a little Italian restaurant that was packed at 2:00 in the afternoon so we knew it had to be good. We had the best pizza that any of the 4 of us had ever tasted. We have all been to Italy but clearly got better Italian food in Australia. How would have "thunk it".
The rest of the afternoon found us doing a little shopping in some of the best dressed shopping "malls" we have found. Ali found shoes but Nancy didn't. Miracles still happen! Unfortunately I did so I made up for it. :-)
Of course Jeff and I couldn't always agree where we were. :-) (see pic below)
We left Melbourne in a little better weather. We ended up walking around 15 miles all day so we went straight to the bar before any of us even went to the room for fear we would never get out. Needless to say the 10:00 show was out. All in all a great day and probably our favorite city in Australia.Read more