Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Melbourne Vacation-Day 7

We started off our morning by driving in to Melbourne and going to the Queen Victoria Markets.  We enjoyed a yummy breakfast there….the kids (& mom and I) loved the mini Dutch pancakes with ice cream! We then walked around the markets and the girls each picked out a souvenir from Nana.
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Then we rode the free city tram to Flinders Street Station
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Yes, they really do call McDonalds, Macca’s.  Any chance they get to shorten a word, they will! Winking smile
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Watching one of the horses get a new shoe put on
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Checking out St. Paul’s Catherdral-beautiful church!
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We walked down the street a bit further to Hosier Lane, known for it’s amazing street art.
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Then we grabbed lunch and headed to Federation Square.  We were intrigued by one of the street performers and stayed to watch his gig…he was amazing!!
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Collecting his well deserved money!
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We went for ice cream and then headed over to a playground by the river.
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We then went on a pretty big walk through pretty much all of the gardens throughout the city….I think we logged about 6km…that’s a lot for little feet (& big people feet considering I carried a sleeping child for about 3 of those km!)
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We stopped at the the Shrine of Remembrance in the Royal Botanic Gardens, a memorial to those men and women who have died or suffered in all wars and peacekeeping operations.
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Inside the Shrine, in the center, is this stone. The inscription is part of a verse from the Bible (John 15:13) "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". The Stone is aligned with an aperture in the roof of the Sanctuary so that a ray of sunlight falls on the word LOVE on the Stone of Remembrance at exactly 11 a.m. on 11 November, marking the hour and day of the Armistice which ended World War I.  During the rest of the year, a light is used to simulate the effect. It was a neat thing to experience the simulation. You can see the aperture on the top left area of the ceiling.
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From here, we went to the rooftop for some amazing views of the city
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Outside, Kyla was having fun with her market souvenir…a Frozen play phone/music/game/voice recorder, etc. etc.  it was a really good find, but definitely got annoying at times!
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We then ventured over to the Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden and spotted this love heart in a tree nearby!
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After playing in the gardens, we made our way through more of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Riverside Park, by AAMI Park, through Melbourne Park, into Yarra Park and by the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and finally made our way to Fitzroy Gardens and to Cook’s Cottage, the oldest building in Australia, built in 1755.
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We were exhausted!  We went back to our apartment, enjoyed dinner and started getting packed up to leave the next day.

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