One of our biggest wins for food was taking a 30 minute walk out to the Fitzroy neighborhood. This little section of the city is the hippest of the hip - lots of quirky shops, lots of flannel, lots of mustaches, but really anything goes out there. It's just a big mishmash of people doing their thing. We really liked it, but by far the best part was hitting up Smith & Deli.
Smith and Daughters is an entirely vegan restaurant, and Smith and Deli is their casual sandwich cafe. It was recommended to us by a work friend, and when we got there, it was obvious that others shared her opinion of it being great food. The line was literally out the door.
The food was too fun - they offer around 30 different sandwiches - all vegan. A lot of them are traditional sandwich types, like Philly cheesesteak or a Cuban ham sandwich. Then there were unique ones, like an "American Thanksgiving sandwich," with turkey, cranberry spread, mashed potatoes, etc. They make most of their fake meats in house, so they didn't have the overly processed flavor you can get sometimes with fake meat. So yum!
Needless to say, this was a super meal for us! We loved our sandwiches so much that we went back to the real restaurant the next day!
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| The flavor of Fitzroy |
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| Feeling peppy after my sandwich! |
After lunch, we found a spot to eat the "Christine" pastry we'd bought in the city that morning. When you find a cake with the same name as you, you really have to eat it.
One thing I love about Melbourne is that it seems like the city loves to put art anywhere it can. In the sidewalk pavings, as installations in open space, or on the sides of buildings. This was an amazing mosaic that went up the side of an office building.
Did I mention that Melbourne is pretty trendy and cultured? So much so that it might border on being a bit pretentious and outrageous at times. There's no better way to capture this, I think, then this picture of the MacDonalds with macaroons on the menu.
We also found a flier for a film festival on that weekend that looked pretty fun. T didn't seem to agree though.
We got a flight + hotel deal for our trip, so I wasn't sure what to expect for our hotel. But it turned out to be great! We were right on the river, looking across at Southbank. We walked around Southbank a bit, but it wasn't our favorite. It's mostly businesses with overpriced restaurants along the river walk. So while the vibe was fun, it didn't have as much character as we got elsewhere.
Not to be outdone by Sydney with its Vivid festival, Melbourne has a public area that has light shows every night and live music on the weekends. There were lots of people enjoying the lights and hanging out. Very fun!
Most creative busker of the trip was this person, dressed as Cookie Monster and playing the bagpipes. I gave him/her a gold coin for effort and because it made me laugh.
Our other notable food adventure took place in the Italian district in Lygon Street. We learned on our free tram ride that Melbourne has the largest population of Italians outside of Italy. And it really does show in the city - so many little coffee cafes!
But the touristy thing to do is go up to Lygon Street, which is just a concentrated mass of Italian restaurants that go for about 4 blocks. So of course we decided that sounded fun.
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| Arancini the size of your head - what could go wrong? |
People were PACKED in. The restaurants tended to be pretty small inside, so sidewalk seating was the thing to do. I took a pic of the sidewalk as we were leaving, which ironically has the sign of the only chain restaurant on the street.
At every place, there was a little Italian man standing outside, trying convince the passersby to eat at that particular restaurant. They all had very similar spiels, were all over the top Italian, and they were very persistent, which cracked us up. So I grabbed a video of one of them.
We ended up with a sunny day on Sunday, so we decided to grab a tram out to St Kilda, the little town in the coast. We bought tickets for the tram and were about halfway to St Kilda when, in true Aussie fashion, the tram stopped and the driver told everyone on board that he wasn't going to St Kilda after all, and anyone wanting to go that way should get off. It was never entirely clear what was happening, but as you do here, we just shrugged our shoulders, climbed off, and watched him go on his way.
Luckily there were quite a few people from the tram that also were trying to go St Kilda, and they were locals, so we figured that we could just follow them the rest of the way. And walking meant that we got to take in some quirky parts of the city that we otherwise wouldn't have seen.
And then we made it to St Kilda! Sunday markers were on along the esplanade that overlooks the beach. It was idyllic.
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| T's level of enjoyment for a Melbourne market was the same as a Sydney one, it seems |
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| The Melbourne Luna Park |
And then to the beach!
It was pretty cold and windy along the beach. And I have to say, as a beach, it had nothing on the Sydney beaches.
On the way back to the city, we got off the tram early so we could walk by the Shrine of Remembrance. It's a beautiful memorial, set on top of a hill so you can see the city and vice versa. It was really beautiful inside too.
Before we were ready, our long weekend was over and the time in Melbourne came to an end. It was such a fun weekend for both of us, but Toby in particular fell in love with the city. So now we are a house divided, just like every other Aussie family: one of us loves Sydney, and the other finds Melbourne superior. I guess the only solution is more weekend adventures to Melbs!
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