After the muggy heat of Byron Bay we arrived to a cooler Melbourne. The recent rain had dampened a lot of the bushfires and cleared the smoke from the air.
We had a great stay with the lovely Clare Barry and her boys Steve, Jack and Freddie in East Brunswick.
The first two days in Melbourne were spent at the Australian Open tennis at Melbourne Park. We watched the second round matches on Rod Laver Arena. Top players we saw included Petra Kvitová, Ash Barty and Novak Djokovic and on the outside courts we watched the Bryan brothers playing doubles. And on Thursday evening Monfils, Halep and Rafa playing - Monfils was particularly entertaining. All very exciting - Melbourne Park had lots of activities happening and a very festive atmosphere.
On Thursday we had lunch with Clare and Fred at Brunetti on Flinders Lane. What an incredible place! Brunetti is an Italian cafe where you enter through a glass tunnel of cakes that opens to the pasticceria on one side where there are retail shelves stocked with panettone and biscuits as well as gelato counters. We kept moving through the pasticerria until we found the deli - it was jam-packed with panini - our lunch! The coffee was rather good too.
After lunch, the sporting related events continued when Alan and Fred went on a tour of the MCG (aka the 'G').
While they were doing that I went on a walking tour of Melbourne's CBD and learnt more about the history of Melbourne and some of her significant buildings including the State Library Victoria, Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free public libraries in the world. The pictures below show the magnificent domed reading room; the Block arcade - a late Victorian era shopping arcade, with richly decorated interior spaces, mosaic tiled flooring, a glass canopy, and lots of wrought iron with carved stone finishings; and the Laneways of Centre Place and Degraves Street which are famous for their cafes and bars.
These last two photos are of a Russian Orthodox Church that we came across while we were walking around East Brunswick on the Sunday morning. It was quite beautiful but it seemed out of place in inner suburban Melbourne.
Saturday evening was pink bubbles and bbq at Clare and Steves, preceded by drinks at the pub on the corner the Lomond. We were joined by our beautiful nieces Bella and Nicci.
On our last Melbourne morning we met up with some old friends, Anna and Bruno who we first met when we all lived in New Delhi in the early 2000s. As I have only seen Anna a couple of times since we left in 2004 it was wonderful to catch up on all that they have been doing. Brunch was at The Bakers Wife in Camberwell.
Anna still goes to India several times a year on buying trips for her import business Carnival Homewares. Her products have a real beachy vibe and are quite beautiful. And they are now sold on-line! Check them out at
and her instagram link is https://www.instagram.com/stories/carnivalhomewares/
Bruno was getting ready to jet off to the Maldives where he works as a chef - he has an instagram account as well - the food pictures are gorgeous as are the ones of the Maldives.