We are here in Marvelous Melbourne, starting off our final two weeks in Australia. We have some activities and excursions planned from here, but only a few, and we are actually really excited to wake up most days and have flexibility and no plans. The past 2.5 weeks with our tour through Tasmania and Great Ocean Road road trip were awesome, but exhausting!

We have rented an VRBO condo while we are here. This one is in the Southbank part of Melbourne, with easy walks to public transportation and the Botanical Gardens. It’s a quiet building on a quiet street, with nowhere near as much excitement and activity as we had by us in Sydney, but it is a nice place to stay. Here is the pretty view from our balcony at night:

Explorations

I love big cities. There is always so much to see and do and explore, and I love getting a feel for the “character “ of a new place. Melbourne certainly has plenty of character! Here are some cool things we saw in our initial days of exploring:

Christmas Spirit

Not gonna’ lie, we arrived here in Melbourne with only two weeks left until Christmas staying in an undecorated rental condo in the summer heat very far away from our friends and family, and I was NOT feeling my usual Christmas spirit. But Melbourne is already managing to change all that. This city has SO many decorations, light displays, and special events that it would be hard NOT to feel a little extra jolly right now. We have spent the last few days soaking in the Christmas cheer.

All of that holly jolly made me decide our condo needed a little Christmas cheer, too!

Southbank Market

On Sunday we had two fun FaceTime calls with friends back home, and then we set out to explore the Southbank Market for a late lunch. This is another market similar to the ones we explored in Sydney and Cairns, with tons of stalls and vendors, and a “little bit of everything” from clothes, jewelry, and housewares to every kind of food, produce, and flowers you could imagine. We love checking out all the local crafts and handmade items, and snacking on random new things from the food stalls, which represent so many countries in the world and foods we’ve never tried. Fun! Today we even stopped at a massage booth and got our back and neck rubbed for 15 minutes each- heaven!! Forgot to take pictures, but then, y’all don’t need a visual of my drowsing off in a massage chair, smiling. 😂

Shrine of Remembrance

After lunch we walked around the giant war memorial next to the Botanical Gardens, the Shrine of Remembrance (shown in the picture up top at night and by day below). It was a very touching memorial area. We rode the street trams around with no problems, and found them to be clean and timely. Take note, MARTA!

Home tonight to eat in and start the last season of Stranger Things. Nice to be able to balance adventure and chill!! Thanks for adventuring with us!!