Maya in Melbourne – a guest post

This is the second guest post by Maya Edberg. She travels to Melbourne and as she lovesggod living and interesting sites, she was in her element. Here is what she saw and did:

My Melbourne Trip
On the flight to Melbourne I kept remembering that commercial by Olivia Newton-John:
”It’s MelBURN,” she said. “Not MelBOURNE.” Fine. A tourist does not want to sound like a rube, or a deliberately dense Yankee. I landed at Melbourne Airport and the weather was just about the same as it was in New York, warm days and coolish nights, though New York’s getting cooler and Melbourne’s going to be hot in a few weeks!

Caught a taxi that took me straight to my hotel apartment at Punthill Flinders Lane, a lovely part of the city full of boutiques and markets that reminded me of Chelsea in my native Manhattan. The apartment, like so many rooms in Melbourne Hotels, was so beautifully decorated that it gave me ideas on how to decorate my own apartment. The kitchen was fully functional and there was an LCD TV with a DVD player and a work station with an internet, but I wasn’t in Melbourne to work! I wanted to see the sights!

Punthill Flinders Lane is only a walk from the Queen Victoria Markets and after a morning sprawled on that huge bed and trying to sleep off some of the jet lag, I headed down there to fill up the fridge and the larder. Bought some of the lovely Australian Chardonnay from the wine market, lamb chops, a liter of milk, cheese, breakfast cereal, a bunch of broccoli, a bag of heirloom tomatoes and other veg and a bag of lemons.

Melbourne Museum
The thing about this beautiful, modernistic museum is that it has the stuffed remains of Phar Lap, Australia’s winningest racehorse. He was a handsome fellow. They also have a live bug exhibit featuring some of the truly weird, oddly beautiful and skin crawly fauna that are found nowhere else in the world. There’s also the fascinating Aboriginal Culture Centre. Like all really good museums, I couldn’t possibly see the whole thing in one day, so after buying a mini digeridoo at the Museum Shop, went back “home.”

Botanical Gardens
Went to the Botanical Gardens the next day. If I thought the fauna of Australia was exotic, the flora is doubly so! Half of the time I kept murmuring to myself, “What is that?” There were flowers that looked like ginger flowers but were a beautiful jade green and huge cycads that look like palm trees but have been around since the dinosaurs. Cockatoos were everywhere, shrieking. They were beautiful, but they were loud! The natives took it in stride though!

Shop
Since I’m not much of a clothes horse, I wanted to buy gifts. Melbourne is full of little shops run by artists selling their wares. When I heard of a little store called Five Boroughs I couldn’t resist. It has a bit of New York kitsch going, including models of the Statue of Liberty that made me tear up. Ended up buying a lovely Australian made cup and saucer, anyway.

The Beach
Melbourne is on Port Phillip Bay and I didn’t forget to head down to the beach the next morning. Still a bit chilly to swim for a lot of people, but some guys were there in board shorts, I think they call them, long swim trunks full of neon and day-glo design. Australian men are stunning, I must say. Did a bit of innocent flirting, then it was back to my cozy apartment! Ah, when I come back for more vacations I can’t wait to try other Melbourne hotel!

Minimalist at its best

Yes, Maya, another  hotel and maybe another spot of flirting!!

Tags: guest post, luxury hotels, melbourne