4 Best Sights in City Center, Adelaide

These magnificent formal gardens include an international rose garden, giant water lilies, an avenue of Moreton Bay fig trees, acres of green lawns, and duck ponds. The Bicentennial Conservatory—the largest single-span glass house in the southern hemisphere—provides an environment for lowland rain-forest species such as the cassowary palm and torch ginger. The Santos Museum of Economic Botany contains fascinating exhibits on the commercial use of some species, and on-site Restaurant Botanic utilizes many plants grown on-site in exquisite degustations. In summer the Moonlight Cinema series (www.moonlight.com.au) screens new, classic, and cult films in Botanic Park, adjacent the garden at sunset; if you forget a picnic blanket you can hire one as well as buy drinks and snacks. Tickets sell fast, so plan ahead. Check the website for workshops, events, and concerts in the park.

Australia's second-oldest zoo still retains much of its original architecture. Enter through the 1883 cast-iron gates to see such animals as the giant pandas, Sumatran tigers, Australian rain-forest birds, and chimpanzees housed in modern, natural settings. The zoo is world renowned for its captive breeding and release programs, and rare species including the red panda and South Australia's own yellow-footed rock wallaby are among its successes. In 2008, the Australian government and Adelaide Zoo signed a cooperative agreement to help secure the long-term survival of the giant panda, and in 2009 Wang Wang and Fu Ni arrived on loan from China to become the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere, and the first to live permanently in Australia. Special VIP panda tours are also available, as are Keeper For A Day tours that let you go behind the scenes and interact with a range of animals. Ask at the ticket office about feeding times, and consult the website for opening times for specific areas of the zoo.

Many famous Australian painters, including Charles Conder, Margaret Preston, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Russell Drysdale, and Sidney Nolan, are represented in here. Extensive Renaissance and British artworks are on display, and the atrium houses Aboriginal pieces. There is usually a visiting exhibition, too. A café and bookshop are also on-site.

This museum's Aboriginal Cultures Gallery houses the largest collection of Indigenous Australian cultural material in the world. Old black-and-white films show traditional dancing, and touch screens convey desert life. Also in the museum are an exhibit commemorating renowned Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, after whom Australia's main Antarctic research station is named; an Opal-Fossils Gallery housing the world's most expensive opals and the fantastic opalized partial skeleton of a 19-foot-long plesiosaur; and a biodiversity gallery. There's also a café overlooking a grassy lawn. If you are traveling during local school holidays, there are fantastic interactive craft and education activities for children for a small fee.