Experience Melbourne in a Day: Tour It with Your Family
You’ll always have your fill of Melbourne attractions, whether you frequent its hotspots or you prefer to tour the more offbeat paths. It’s different if you’re visiting with your family, though, because you won’t be able to stretch your day long enough to accommodate the various wholesome pursuits the city has to offer. This may sound tiring to you, but to your kids, this means that a boundless world of pleasant opportunities awaits them. It’s fortunate that the city is best toured on foot. Otherwise, you’ll only have a satisfactory experience when you take the standard commutes. Sidewalks and bike paths offer you the best sampling of the urban landscape, and since you’ll likely stumble on a tourist trap around every corner, there’s no better way to sightsee than on foot.
You can’t experience the variety of Melbourne attractions solely through walk tours, though, so you’ll have to take the city trams to move around. The ride is far from being ho-hum, since the tram circuits deliberately pass by the most popular hotspots. In fact, you’ll more likely board a viewing escalator rather than a commute vehicle, since you can always step off a boarding stop if your kids see a spot they particularly fancy. You’ll efficiently navigate the city with the convenient transport, and the ten-minute wait for the next tram is brief enough to fit into your hectic tour list. The trams will serve more as an intermission tour between your destinations, as it offers you a cross section of the urban landscape as you go along.
Once you’ve delved the depths of Melbourne attractions, it’s only fitting to come back to the surface and follow it up with a sampling of the high seas, onboard the Polly Woodside. This authentic 1885 sailing ship has plenty of history and dock experience to boot, and it’s the best place to house the artifacts of Melbourne’s Maritime Museum. You’ll literally walk through time as you pause on the exhibits that flaunt the ship and the city’s detailed maritime history, as you brace yourself against the tempered timbers that sway with the dock current.
You’ve started off your tour with intense yet educational pit stops, and you could take a breathing pause from the surge of excitement by touring the historical, local ambiance of Williamston. The area is one of the many Melbourne attractions visitors frequent to have a sentimental, nostalgic experience, and you’ll even be able to take a quick break from the walks by dining on meals and treats served by the numerous street-side restaurants. Once you’ve had your fill, let your kids frolic at the Esplanade Art and Craft market near St. Kilda beach. The various specialty shops should keep them occupied for hours, and you’ll practically have to drag them away from the area, especially when the variety of amusements at nearby Luna Park earnestly beckons to them.
There are plenty of other Melbourne attractions to visit, and the day is far from over. But since you’ll probably be losing daylight by now, you could give your kids a quick treat before you head on to the Melbourne Observation Deck, fifty-five floors up the Rialto Towers. Take them to Federation Square and let them view their frolicking in real time, on the large TV screen. And because the video feed is also streamed as is on the Internet, you’re children will get a kick out of their international exposure. Melbourne is truly a city of cities, and you should take your family out on a pleasure tour here one of these days.
The variety of Melbourne attractions provides an experience that truly overwhelms. If you want to tour the city in a day, take your family along with you; your kids will absolutely love you before the day is through.