Start from 118 curated places around Melbourne, AU, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Attica
Ben Shewry's Ripponlea fine-dining room in a Glen Eira Road shopfront — a single nightly tasting menu built around native Australian ingredients and the kitchen's own garden. The country's most-cited destination restaurant for over a decade.
Vue de Monde
Shannon Bennett's 55th-floor Rialto Tower fine-dining room — a multi-course Australian tasting menu and an enormous wine list, with the CBD skyline and Port Phillip Bay panorama as the back wall. The CBD's special-occasion benchmark.
Trails & outdoors
Capital City Trail
A 29km mostly-flat loop that circles the inner city — the Yarra path from Princes Bridge to Dights Falls, the Merri Creek back through Royal Park, and the Moonee Ponds Creek along Docklands. The cyclist's circumnavigation of central Melbourne.
Main Yarra Trail
A 38km riverside path from Southbank east through Abbotsford, Studley Park, Heidelberg, and out to Templestowe — flat, paved, and the inner-east commuter cycling spine. The river-corridor walk the city's runners default to.
Things to do
NGV International
The state gallery's St Kilda Road wing — the Roy Grounds bluestone monolith with the Water Wall facade, free permanent collection across European, Asian, and decorative arts, and the city's most-cited blockbuster ticketed exhibitions (Van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, Triennial).
NGV Australia at Federation Square
The NGV's sister wing in Federation Square dedicated to Australian art — Indigenous Australian art on Level 3, colonial and modern Australian on the lower levels, and a free permanent collection. The Australian-art half of the city's twin galleries.
Landmarks & sights
Federation Square
The deconstructed-zinc-and-sandstone civic plaza opposite Flinders Street Station — Australia's main public square since 2002, home to NGV Australia, ACMI, and the city's biggest-screen outdoor broadcasts. The orientation point every Melbourne walking tour starts from.
Flinders Street Station
The 1909 Edwardian-baroque train station with the yellow facade and copper dome — the busiest suburban station in the southern hemisphere and the city's universal meeting point. 'Meet me under the clocks' is a Melbourne phrase that still works.