Melbourne Part 2

Aside from cafes and football, I did take in some other sights in Melbourne.  I spent time at Queen Victoria Market, the State Library of Victoria, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Carlton Gardens and Fitzroy Gardens.  Here are some highlights!

Victoria Market is a market that basically sells everything and is open 5 days of the week until about 2pm.  You can get fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses and general merchandise from this massive market.  I just had a donut and a nice little walk through.

The skyscrapers of Melbourne tower over the Queen Victoria Market.

The next stop, the State Library, had both its ups and downs.  On the plus side, I thought it was a beautiful library with lots of space inside and there were even several exhibits. The one about the trams caught my eye of course.

The outside of the library.

A giant study/reading room.

It was massive, couldn't even capture it all in one frame.

Tram exhibit!

Just outside the library.

The not so neat part was that there were people arguing about marriage equality out front when I first arrived.  Yes, public debate is a good thing, though hearing the reasoning of the no voters is what was disheartening.  I watched and listened for about 20 minutes before going inside.  While the crowd clearly leaned yes, there were certainly a couple vocal "no's."  As I've mentioned before, Australia is voting to legalize same-sex marriage, and they have some 30 more days to vote by mail.  You really can't escape it.  Every city I've been to, I've seen or heard something related to the vote.  What makes it not so neat, at least on this day, were two things.  One, the people who were advocating voting no had some horrible things to say about gay people and that they should not be able to raise children.  Which, is actually already legal in most of Australia so kind of a flawed argument.  They had some other not nice things to say. The other thing is thinking about how there is a nationwide vote where the masses get to decide on basic rights for a minority group.  Kind of sad it has to be decided that way; I hope the Aussies get it right!  Here's a photo of the debate.

To balance that out, there are also signs like this all over the place:

After the library I took a long walk outside St. Patrick's Cathedral, Carlton Gardens and Fitzroy Gardens.

St. Patrick's Cathedral, front

St, Patrick's Cathedral, back

Exhibition Center inside Carlton Gardens

Carlton Gardens

Carlton Gardens

Then finally, Fitzroy Gardens.  It really was amazing to see how many large gardens and parks there were so close to the city center.

Well Melbourne, that's a wrap.  Overall I really enjoyed the city!  Easily somewhere I could live or come back to!  Up next, I drive myself along the Great Ocean Road (on the wrong side of the road!)