“The Traveler sees what he sees.  The tourist sees what he has come to see.”

                                                                                                                                 G.K. Chesterton

I used to spend hours reading tour guides and history books planning everything we wanted to see. but we kept getting lost along the way.  Like the time in London when we were headed to the British Museum and saw a parade of trees walking down the street (Ok, they were men dressed as trees.)  We followed the trees to the “Ethical Culture Hall” and found ourselves in the middle of the Beltane Bash (It was early May) where groups of pagans and Harry Potter fans were celebrating — to the bewilderment of the mostly Moslem neighborhood.  We stayed all day and into the evening watching Morris Dancers, women dancing with broomsticks and kids in tweeds and big glasses cavorting in and out of the hall.  We never got to the British Museum (at least not on that trip.) 

This trip to Melbourne was kind of like that.  I had a list of things that Lonely Planet told us we had to see.  We set out to see them and failed.   Our first diversion was right around the corner from our hotel.  In the middle of steel and glass were some brownstone buildings, a church, a chapter hall, manse and what was probably a school.  One of the steel and glass buildings curled around and over one of the older buildings.  An art deco building, a newer part of the older complex, had a new brick façade and a steel skeleton extending the lines of the building.  It was all called Wesley Place and was a fascinating architectural diversion although the extreme of bright sunlight and shadow made good photography difficult.

Leaving Wesley place we headed for the tram.  Trams are free in the Central Business District (CBD).  Perhaps it was because we were confused by boarding the tram on the left rather than the right but we got on a tram going in the wrong direction.  We really didn’t notice because we got into a conversation with a woman carrying instrument cases.  She was joining a cruise ship the next day and had just gotten into town from Auckland.  She was headed for lodgings in the Fitzroy neighborhood.  But Fitzroy is out of town and we thought we were heading deeper into the CBD.  Then came the announcement.  “This is the last stop before we leave the free zone. Everyone remaining on the tram must have a ticket.”  Opps, we got off and found ourselves in Carleton Gardens, a wonderful find.

From the gardens we saw a restored old trolly car running on the tram line headed back toward the CBD.  We got on and found that tram 35 is essentially a free hop on hop off tour with commentary on what we are passing. 

We rode around learning about things we might want to hop off to see on our final day in Melbourne (spoiler alert, we didn’t get to any of them.) 

But we did hop off at the central railway station and wandered through the Victorian arcades built in the industrial iron and glass steampunk era.   

We stopped at an ice cream shop and an optician (my glasses needed some help) and did some shopping.  I found something I could not find on my last trip to Australia but I can’t tell you what it is.  It’s a surprise for someone who may be reading this.  (If you are on the ship, ask me.)

We got back on tram 35.  We found where we are going to board a ferry on Saturday to visit some friends out of town.  We got off at a stop near the hotel, which happened to be the Victoria State Library.  I have a library phobia but I also knew that this building was a unique architectural specimen from that same steampunk glass and iron era as the arcades.  I took a deep breath and plunged in.  To my delight it was not a particularly quiet library.  The building is a glass domed octagon inside a rectangular box.  The main reading room is several stories high with natural light and hundreds of people reading.  I did not see one book cracked (Suzi claims to have seen one person reading a book.)  Everyone was on devices, computers, phones, or tablets.  While the walls were lined with books, I could not find a way to access many of them.  They were several stories up with no visible way of getting to them.  They added to the ambiance. 

I pulled out my iPhone to check for Wi-Fi.  There were dozens of “networks” listed, mostly someone’s phone or computer.  I found the library Wi-Fi was fast.  I recommend using a VPN.

The area around the octagon has reading rooms, reference rooms and art galleries, all free. 

On the terrace outside the museum the tile work is arranged as two giant chess boards with people playing the large pieces to the delight of the kibitzing crowd. 

We walked back to the hotel, past Wesley Place (It is still an active church housing both Cantonese and English Language “Uniting Church” congregations.  Suzi wondered what Wesley would have thought of both the idea of a Uniting Church and an urban place named after him.  Any Methodists want to weigh in?