A great excuse to take some pictures of the city minus the traditional stuff you’d see on tourism brouchures.
St Paul’s church with a CBD backdrop. The amazing thing about this city is it’s european feel without being too cosmopolitian. Which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are. Personally I do miss the buzz of my home country but Melbourne’s quaint laneways and al fresco cafe culture gives a unique characteristic that I could never find in Sporeland. It does not however have that same iconic feel as some of the larger ‘World Cities’. One of the re-discovered joys that I’ve er..discovered recently, are the existence of these laneways. They harbour an interesting plethora of coffee holes, eateries or even that odd sushi joint. At lunch time, these same lanes are awashed with suits.
The architecture conveys a mixed euro-aussie-american sentiment. Heritage buildings are preserved, with interesting neo-gothic examples here and there.
This particular office building was built right onto an old building front, thus maintaining it’s ‘heritage’ value. It is the site of a multinational accounting firm, and I’ve often found it remarkable how the entire office building rests on the foundations of the old Herald Sun block.
In order to prevent urban sprawl, the CBD is drawn up into a compact grid pattern with the surrounding parks and river making a ‘belt’ around the city. It’s often a great stress relief having to look out into the botanical gardens straight out of the office window, surveying the river’s South Bank and the Eureka Tower.
Naturally, all these photos were taken on nice sunny days. Melbourne is known to have ‘4 seasons in one day’, sunshine one minute and cold rainy bleak weather the next. When that happens, it looks miserable and foggy.
But when the weather’s great like this evening, you’d just feel like getting out on the river for a nice casual stroll.
