To visit Melbourne or not to include it
 

We are planning a trip to Australia & New Zealand & are trying to decide whether to include a stop in Melbourne. We very rarely see Melbourne as a destination on many tours we have looked at. Is it worth a stop & if so, would 3 days be the right amount of time.

More info, please. What time of year are you going? How long will you be in Australia? What are your interests?

Agree your interests are an important consideration. We recently returned from a whirlwind 4 day Sydney, 4 day Melbourne and preferrred Melbourne over Sydney.

Melbourne is a fantastic city--I definitely recommend a visit. Lots of neat neighborhoods, good museums, and it is really fun to watch an Australian Rules Football match there if you get the chance! We also went to Sydney and agree that Melbourne was more fun. More info and pics at http://patrinadoestheglobe.blogspot.com/

I just returned from a week in Melbourne & I too prefer it to Sydney. W/ the river, parks, museums, restaurants, there's much to see & do. The city is very tourist friendly which makes it easy to get around. I will be back sooner than later!

I think if you looking for a city with a good atmosphere then Melbourne is the go, i live in Melbourne and the city is so lively and is both the sporting capitol and food capitol of Aus

Yes definitely include Melbourne. It is the happening city in Australia.

I will add a somewhat different opinion. To me, what makes Australia special is not the cities, but what's outside and in-between. With limited time, I'd stick with one major city and leave it at that. As it is truly one of the worlds most beautiful cities, Sydney usually tops the list for overseas travelers. If you are a connoisseur of city life, by all means visit Melbourne, otherwise I'd leave it out, particularly if time is limited.

I live in Melbourne. We have great rivalry with our other great city Sydney and of course i will say Melbourne is the better., and that is because it, is not because I am biased.
Melbourne is very tourist friendly and so easy to get around. three days would give you only enough time to do the centre of the city such as Southbank and maybe two day trips say to the Dandenongs and Yarra Valley wineries as one and then another to the South western surf beaches and the great ocean road as the other.

Where you stay in Melbourne will make or break the trip! If you stay in a suburb like South Yarra for example, you'll be surrounded by more cafes and restaurants than you can imagine. Whereas is you stay in another part of the city you'll be wondering why on earth you bothered with Melbourne.

The actually city part of Melbourne is pretty dead and ugly ( I am from Melbourne ) but the suburbs surrounding the city are where all the atmosphere is.

People say it's more European than Sydney. You can get delicious coffee in Melbourne whereas in Sydney they'd simply direct you to the nearest Gloria Jeans.

Sydney has the instant gratification like the Opera House and The Bridge , but Melbourne has the culture.

There are not as many big ticket tourist attractions in Melbourne, its more for people who love the cafe / arts lifestyle.

If you are into sport, Melbourne is the Mecca. Austalian Open Tennis, Formula One Grand Prix, The Melbourne Cricket Ground etc etc....

Melbourne is also a bit cheaper than Sydney too.

You're hanging out with the wrong Sydney crowd, Tony.

... and I think you're selling your own city centre short, too.
What about the interesting architecture, Yarra beside Federation Square & Southbank; beguiling little laneways with coffee & wine bars; Chinatown,the NGV & Ian Potter galleries, Princess Theatre and even Bourke Street Mall isn't THAT bad ;)

A bit too much special pleading going on here, I think. Out of Sydney and Melbourne there is no "best" (or to be pedantic "better"), and the views of their respective residents and boosters are not the most reliable of guides.

Melbourne is a pleasant city that has a lot going for it, but Sydney's sheer physical beauty, attractions and energy cannot be discounted.

Statements like "Melbourne has the culture" may play well to established Melburnian mythology. But to dismiss Sydney, the home of such world-class institutions as the Australian Opera, the Australian Ballet, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Bell Shakespeare Company, not to mention the National Institute of Dramatic Art in such terms flies in the face of reality.

It's a bit like drawing comparisons between New York City and Boston; both are worth visiting, but if you can only see one, there's no contest.

For the record, the Australian Ballet Centre is at Southbank Melbourne!

My mistake, DownUnder - sorry.

Neil_Oz, it depends what you are looking for I guess. I'd rather see a game of AFL at the MCG than Swan Lake at the Opera House so I guess there is no right or wrong here.

The only thing I will absolutely fight you tooth and nail over is that it's impossible to find a decent coffee in Sydney :)

I agree, Sydney has the postcard photo opportunities. It's a stunning city.

tony, I agree it's a case of horses for courses, and who am I to exclude a footie game from someone's definition of culture, but the perspectives of residents often won't align with those of visitors.

I might say that as a Canberran of 25 years' standing I'm an expert in having my home town slagged off, and I know there's little point in protesting that in livability terms we're a country mile ahead of most cities.

Hi Tony, I'm in Melbourne today - what's your top tip for a great coffee? CBD this morning, Brighton, Toorak Rd & Armadale later.

Better Christmas weather than Sydney this time :)

I think Ralph had the best "tip", apart from Sydney which is great get out and see what is between the cities. Personally I find Melbourne about as boring as a city can get, I find their brand of "culture" not to my taste and have only found a Simulcast from the Metropolitian Opera NYC anything to want to go and see. The weather is mostly dreadful, either too darn hot in summer or as cold as in winter. I like the people though and have many friends in Melbourne but prefer that they come and stay with me than the other way around. Sitting outside cafe's, drinking latte's and breathing in car exhaust fumes is not my ideal way to spend a day and I would rather be out and about in the countryside and making my way through Nature's treatures and cultures than trying to hear myself think on some pavement in some " now trendy" but what was once " a shitty suburb's" shopping precinct.

Hi Bokhara2

This would be my first suggestion!

www.caffeecucina.com.au

581 Chapel St
South Yarra VIC 3141
(03) 9827 4139

I have not been there for a few years but they are famous for their great coffee and amazing Italian Food.

You'll find great cafes all along that Chapel Street.

Have fun!

ivenotbeeneverywhere, there weather here in Sydney today is dreadful while they are enjoying perfect Sunshine in Melbourne today. FYI.

Mille Grazie, Tony.

Hi, we are from Florida and visited NZ and Australia in Oct.-Nov. Our trip was wonderful and I strongly advise you to go to Melbourne. We loved it. We stayed at the Crown Towers, it is the most fabulous hotel it has fabulous stores and a casino right in the building . One of our favorite things on the vacation was Philip Island and the penguin parade which is only a few hours away and the Great Ocean Road starts there. We had three very full days and wished we had longer. While we loved Sydney and would not have missed it for the world but we were so glad we had included Melbourne, it was so special. The weather was perfect, the people charming and it was just great.

stpetereb thanks for adding some genuine perspective on the topic !

Unfortunately there is a long held, bitter rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne, so if you ask a Sydney-ite about Melbourne all you will hear is ingrained rhetoric about how boring Melbourne is. The first thing they knock is the weather although the worlds great cities (NY, Paris, London etc) get a lot colder than it ever does in Melbourne.

So the only way to get a balanced opinion on this topic is to exlude people from Melbourne and Sydney!

I have lived in both and my opinion is that you really need to live in Melbourne for an extended time to really "get it" whereas in Sydney you only need to drive past the Sydney Harbor Bridge to feel like you are in Australia.

So to live in, I far prefer Melbourne, but for a short trip to Australia, maybe Sydney is the better choice.

If you want the real Australia, stop of in Darwin and try to get to Kakadu or a trip down the Adelaide River where the saltwater crocs jump out of the water to be fed!

To live in, I'd probably opt for Melbourne unless I had a lazy couple of million lying around allowing me to live near Sydney's harbour or northern beaches (despite the latter's lousy public transport).

The vast majority of Sydney's people live nowhere near these areas, and in fact the demographic centre of greater Sydney is now a good 20 km west of the coast. But that's OK from a the viewpoint of a visitor, who'll only glimpse the great sprawl of the western suburbs on a day tour to the Blue Mountains, if at all. After all, you don't visit NYC to see Queens.

I do think that the rivalry tony mentions exists much more in the minds of Melburnians than Sydneysiders, who generally don't think of Melbourne, or indeed anywhere else in Australia, as a rival. Actually they seldom think about Melbourne at all. Call it insularity, or arrogance, but that's the way it is.

Everyone please take out your pens and note on the calendar that today was nicer, CLIMATE WISE in Melbourne than in Sydney - it won't happen again for another few hundred years!

I'm with Tony on Cafe e Cucina, it's also great for lunch, amazing pasta, there's also great coffee at Pelligrini's in Bourke St and Brunetti's Faraday st, Carlton--fab cakes also.

I disagree about Sydney coffee, I'd no more direct someone to Gloria Jeans than that brown swill served at Starbucks, I'd recomend Bar Coluzzi (Darlinghurst), Bar Italia (Leichhardt).

I would also advise factoring in a trip to Melbourne, if for no other reason than to see the diversity of Australian cities - if you just visit Sydney, you don't appreciate how different other urban areas in Australia can be, and Sydney and Melbourne are really totally different (each is good for different reasons).

Lavandula

Even if they didn't serve mediocre coffee I'd stay clear of Starbucks and Gloria Jean's because I loathe their McDonalds style serve-yourself, paper-mug approach - and their prices offer no concession to this indignity. In any Australian city you can get decent coffee served in real cups with table service, even if you may have to order at the counter, and pay no more than these crummy chains.

And the fact that Starbucks has closed most of its Australian outlets suggests that they couldn't handle the competition from independent cafes. All of Canberra's Starbucks outlets disappeared practically overnight.

Neil, perhaps the northern beaches of Sydney's "lousy transport" could have been relieved some 25 years or so ago if the citizens of Avalon and Palm Beach hadn't created an enormous and successful environmental scare which halted the widening of the Bilgola bends, just north of Newport. What they forgot to take into account is the enormous burgeoning of population and weekend daytripper traffic, a total bottleneck of traffic on a 2 lane winding road (one lane each way) merging into a tiny roundabout at the top of the hill before Avalon.

Still the best part of Sydney as far as I'm concerned though.

Hope you've plenty of ink in your pen, ivenotbeeneverywhere ;) I've been in & around Melbourne since 22nd Dec and the weather has been glorious the whole time. Sunny, mid - high 20s. Today, I'm in Cowes - not a cloud in the sky & about 20c.

The Penguin parade last night was magic; in small and large groups, these little birds emerged from the sea, marched resolutely up the beach to their burrows. Very social, lots of chattering and not at all disturbed by all the people watching them from the boardwalk, as they went about feeding their chicks, nattering with their neighbours. They reminded me of a bunch of Masons going to Lodge on a Friday night :)

Those devious little devils - the penguins - who would have thought that they had secret handshakes. Obviously its gone to their heads since " March of the Penguins". Glad that you are having a nice time and the weather is good. Today is supposed to be HOT and nasty but then again - there is always tomorrow.

The penguins were SO gorgeous. Have you seen them? I was trying to hang around down here long enough for the wet weather to leave Sydney but looks as if I'll be heading into it tomorrow. Ah well, can't be greedy.

The weather in Tasmania right now is SPECTACULAR so why would you want to head back to the BIG "cough, splutter, croak" smoke? Aside from the weather here in Tassie, its the Taste of Tasmania festival down at the docks in Hobart with food and wines and busking and merriment and let me tell you that this is the place to BE! Yes I have seen the penguins both in Australia and in the Antarctic where there are Armies of these little Masons. They are my most favourite little people in the World, even if they do tend to smell a bit.