Having been in Melbourne for almost two months, we decided that we still hadn’t seen as much of it as we should have. So we thought we would plan some alone-time with the city and make a list of its ‘must see’ attractions in preparation for a day in the life of a tourist…

Our plans consisted of this: wander the famous Melbourne laneways, seek out some street art, go up the SkyDeck and take a tour on the historic city tram. We’re pleased to say that we managed to do all this and more, using the really helpful visitor centre at Federation Square as our starting point. The centre has loads of maps and guides on the city, including a self-guided walking tour of the laneways and old shopping arcades, so we used this as our bible for the day and set off to explore!

Our first stop was Hosier Lane where we came across some of the most amazing graffiti we had ever seen. Melbourne has a long tradition of supporting street artists who use dedicated alleys like this one to showcase their creativity. We were so impressed by what we saw that we thought we would dedicate an entire blog post to the art we discovered around the city, before moving on to the rest of our touristy adventure!

So, we hope you enjoy looking through some of our pics of the best of Melbourne’s street art…

[singlepic id=4121 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4125 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4126 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4127 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4128 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4124 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4123 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4122 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4120 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4119 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4118 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4117 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4116 w=520 h=440 float=center]

[singlepic id=4115 w=520 h=440 float=center]

Cities like London should definitely take a leaf out of Melbourne’s book and provide street artists with dedicated places to display their art. The various laneways are a great example of Melbourne’s quirkiness and the way in which it embraces art and culture – we think it’s great and it certainly gave us something else to look at other than cars and concrete as we made our way around the rest of the city…