Tourist in my own town

...my friend Cath and my son Richard at 333...perhaps slightly over the tourist photos???

We've just farewelled visiting interstate friends. They were with us for far too short a time, but we managed to do quite a lot. We trained it into town (but unfortunately weren't on trains with the Moving Galleries exhibition and 'Pompeii Dog') and visited the State Library

and completed a self-guided walking tour of (some of) Melbourne's wonderful lanes and arcades. While some of lanes and arcades were familiar others were less so. All were worth visiting. The gent at the info centre also suggested a couple of side excursions into two buildings in Collins St. One was the ANZ bank building...an amazing gothic construction and the other we know as 333. Again a stunning foyer and walk through. Without his guidance we'd not have entered either building.


I've been to the State Library a few times recently but usually I have a purpose and limited time. So I'd not made it to the galleries around the wonderful La Trobe Reading Room. There are exhibitions there - many of them. We started slowly but a lunch commitment meant that we had to hurry through the last ones. Fantastic and varied. There was the Ned Kelly exhibition, an amazing one on words through history and much much more. And all free! Well worth a repeat visit...or two.



We managed to sample a number of cuisines too. In our two city days, we sampled Italian, Greek, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, French and more. Just as well we did all that walking really.


We resolved to be tourists in our own town...to seek out new corners and new experiences. With and without visitors.

This is detail from the Manchester Unity Building Arcade - corner of Collins and Swanston St.