Melbourne, my newest favorite place

I flew into Melbourne 5 days before teaching at the Australasian Quilt Convention so I could have time to see the sights and also acclamate to the time change. Luckily I had friends to stay with that knew all the kinds of places I’d like to see.

The first place we went after leaving the airport, and 23 hours since leaving my house in Sacramento, was the Queen Victoria Market, what a fun place! This is a huge indoor outdoor market with stalls selling cheeses, wines, cured meats, olives, pastries, coffees, fish and meats. A veritable gourmet paradise!

I was fascinated when I saw these Balmain Bay Bugs, I have never seen them before.

Look at all those flavors of macaroons! Merengues and macaroons seem to be very popular in Australia.

In the open air portion of the market they sell fruits and vegetables, and there are many stalls catering to tourist minded items like; sheep skin boots and slippers, stalls with Aborigine art, and pelts (the kangaroo have the long tail portion hanging down on the right).

After a lunch of Lebanese lamb rolls and coffee at the market, we went to St. Kilda,

where I got to dip my toes in ocean water, walk along the beach, and have a glass of wine on a perfect warm sunny afternoon. It was beautiful, my new love affair with Melbourne was well on its way.

A spectacular site at St. Kilda is Luna Park, a very old, small classic beach side amusement park.

I love the wood tracks on this old roller coaster.

Melbourne has a real side walk street cafe culture, and on Acland Street in St. Kilda there are pastry and gelato shops one after the other. It’s amazing they all stay in business being right next to each other like that, but I’m sure during peak season times they are packed with people, I mean how can you resist? By the way, those merengues were at least 6 inches across!

After having a delicious gelato, we walked past what looked like a community garden with this wonderful iron and glass pear gate.

And this was just my first day!