On Friday, I took our visitors for a walk through the Melbourne CBD; as far as I can tell, it worked quite well! It's the first time I've really been happy with a trip showing the CBD to visitors...
The route
- Parked at Southgate.
- Eureka tower, for an overview. (That's the new viewing deck — the one at Rialto Towers is no more!)
- Across the footbridge (the bent one) and through the underpass under Flinders St Station, cross the road and turn right; after half a block, turn left into Degraves St.
- More or less straight through the lanes, arcades and Myer through to Melbourne Central. In some places there's choice — for instance, we took The Causeway (a lane) rather than The Walk (an arcade); we could have chosen David Jones instead of Myer.
- From Melbourne Central out onto Swanston St and downhill. This took us past the State Library, Chinatown (where we made a bit of a loop), Melbourne Town Hall, City Square with acrobats, St Paul's cathedral, Flinders St Station clocks across the intersection, Federation Square and across the bridge with a view of the Arts Centre.
- After the bridge, we took a left and looped under the bridge. (We could have also taken the right side of the bridge and gone down there, but I think that side has stairs.)
- Along the bank back to Southgate.
Notes:
- The same circuit could be done from any point along Southbank or nearby. Parking in Southgate costs $37; if I'm going to be doing this more often, it might be worth finding a cheaper option.
- The weakest point is probably the underpass under Flinders St Station; it's a bit too authentically a railway underpass.
- The route is about 3km (loop). It's got the advantage that it's mostly there and back, so at any point one can walk over to Swanston St and head back. There were some stairs, the biggest set at the exit from the underpass, then the occasional quarter-floor in the lanes and arcades. On about two occasions, there's a lift or escalator.
- The route is slightly heavy on the shopping, especially in the second quarter.
⇦ Link: "sell things which cannot be copied" |
