Day 19: A morning bus tour of Melbourne

We set off with our guide Tatiana, who was a bit bossy and rather easily irritated. We were clearly there to listen, not to chat among ourselves!
We started by driving from the Sofitel up to the Royal Exhibition Building and the Melbourne Museum. The former was built for the World Fair in 1880 and was awarded World Heritage status in 2004. It really is a splendid building, set in beautiful gardens.


Below it is reflected in the windows of the modern IMAX theatre which has the world's third largest 3D screen.


Here is the view looking from the IMAX Theatre.



After a short drive we stopped to look at St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral,


and the tower of the old seminary,


before crossing the road into the Fitzroy Gardens, where we saw lovely flowerbeds and tree lined avenues.








We visited The Fairies Tree, carved in the 1930s by Ola Cohn. Absolutely charming!








The we moved on to Captain Cook's Cottage, which is actually the home built by his parents in around 1755. It was shipped to Australia in 253 packing cases and reconstructed in 1934.





It seems rather incongruous to find this building in a park in Melbourne, especially considering that Cook never found his way there, passing south of Tasmania and going directly to Sydney!


We walked to the Shrine of Remembrance, built to commemorate the Anzacs' contribution to the campaign in Gallipolli.


At present they are getting ready to celebrate the centenary next year, so much of the building is inaccessible, but we were able to watch a very moving film.


Clearly the history of Gallipolli very much touches the hearts of Victorians to this day.

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