Wednesday, January 30, 2008


Tourism in Melbourne, Australia, is an important industry with approximately 7.6 million domestic visitors and 1.88 million international visitors in 2004.. The city has a large sports tourism industry, hosting a large number of spectator sports.

Melbourne tourism Restaurants
As one would expect from a city its size, Melbourne contains all manner of pubs, bars, and nightclubs. The CBD contains a wide variety of venues, from the ubiquitous faux-Irish pubs and more traditional Aussie hotels, through some very upmarket wine bars, serious jazz venues on Bennetts Lane, fashionable nightclubs and dance venues (where the Melbourne Shuffle was born), often hidden away down obscure grungy alleys, and massive pickup joints (of which The Metro on Bourke Street is perhaps the biggest).
The restaurant strips, particularly Brunswick Street have their own bars, some of which are the best rock venues in Melbourne. King Street, on the southern side of the CBD, was traditionally a nightclub strip and still hosts several, but many are now exotic dancing venues (a final note on this topic, small brothels are legal in Victoria and are found discreetly dotted throughout the suburbs). Chapel Street, Prahran, is perhaps the trendiest, most upmarket (and most expensive) nightlife strip. Another area of note is St Kilda, background for the TV show The Secret Life Of Us, which is the home of several huge music venues including the famous Esplanade Hotel (known as 'the Espy'), the Prince of Wales, and The Palace. On its beachside setting, it also combines the upmarket with the grungy.
The recent influx of city-dwellers has given rise to the numerous underground bars and sidewalk cafes in the alleys between Flinders Street - Flinders Lane and Bourke Street - Lonsdale Street. Notable alleys include Block Arcade/Block Place (off Little Collins Street), Degraves Street (off Flinders Lane), and Hardware Lane (between Bourke and Lonsdale Streets).
Other prominent cafe strips include:
Melbourne also has a vibrant gay community, with gay and gay-friendly bars across the city. It is mostly concentrated on two gay villages - Commercial Rd, South Yarra and Smith St, Collingwood, but there are also gay bars and clubs in St Kilda, Fitzroy, Richmond and Yarraville.

St Kilda's Fitzroy Street, Carlisle Street and Acland Street are home to many popular cafes.
Fitzroy's Brunswick Street
South Yarra's Chapel Street
Collingwood's Smith Street
Richmond's Bridge Road
Southbank's Southgate and Crown Casino. Close to Melbourne

Culture of Melbourne
History of Melbourne
Media in Melbourne
Melbourne City Tourist Shuttle
Transport in Melbourne
Tourism in Australia
Melbourne travel guide from Wikitravel

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