Melbourne morning I

On Tuesday morning, Holly and I got up bright and early to catch a flight to Melbourne. It was rough getting up at 4, but on the plus side, it meant we were in Melbourne and ready to explore by 9 AM!

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we made breakky the number one priority. Luckily, we only had to cross the street to stumble across some amazing food! Holly had sautéed mushrooms on sourdough with a poached egg, and I had an equally delicious plate of corn and cilantro fritters with avocado mousse. Mmmm! Power food!

The city circle trolley was cute as a button!

Then it was off to catch the free city circle trolley to take us down toward Flinders Street, the heart of Melbourne tourism. We actually got thrown for quite a loop because the trolley line is in the center of the street; so that means you have to stand on a little island between the lanes of traffic to catch the trolley. Needless to say, we crossed the street back and forth a couple times before we figured out this was the case and then worked out the nerve to camp out in the middle of the street.
It was also actually really informative, too, as it has a recording that describes the areas you're passing. Holly and I had planned to work our way back toward the hotel through the more direct streets, but we saw so many things we wanted to check out on the trolley ride that we decided to retrace our trolley route instead.

Excited to be on the trolley!

First, though, we had to check out Flinders Street Station and Federation Square. These are in all the travel books as the "iconic" things to see. It was a cool area, but ended up probably not being the favorite part of the day.

Before we headed back on our winding route to the hotel, we also walked through St. Paul's Cathedral. It was amazing and lovely inside - but no pictures!

We backtracked along Flinders St until we hit Treasury Gardens. The sun was beaming down - perfect garden weather!

At that point, we joined up with Spring Street and then detoured over to St. Patrick's Cathedral. We were allowed to take pictures inside this one.

A quick detour through the Carlton Gardens and by the Royal Exhibition Building...

And then we decided to make our way back to the hotel to rest our feet. However, on our way, we crossed Lygon St, which we'd been told has a huge variety of eateries. This was not an exaggeration!

We came across a restaurant called Pasta Rustica, which had a board listing about 10 different types of house-made soufflés. Including a Nutella soufflé. Such a thing cannot be passed by.
So we had a bite of bruschetta, some bubbles, and then capped it off with the best soufflé either of us have ever had!
You really can't top a morning/afternoon like this!

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