Goodbye Rainy Hobart, Hello Sunny? Melbourne

While we seem to have amazing luck with weather when traveling in New Zealand, that luck doesn't seem to follow us across the Tasman.  Our final day in Hobart was a very gray, very rainy day.  Luckily, we had a car, so we were able to stay dry while we drove around some of Hobart's neighborhoods.  Our flight from Hobart to Melbourne took a whopping 58 minutes and gave us a glimpse of the sun once we were flying above the clouds.

We arrived to a sunny afternoon in Melbourne (yahoo!) and were at our hotel in the Central Business District in what seemed like no time at all thanks to SkyBus.  Our hotel is right across the street from Southern Cross Station (where lots of trains, trams, and buses stop) and very close to everything we need to get to.  Per the suggestions of some smart people, we headed to Brunswick Street to check out the cool shops.  What we checked out even more was the graffiti.  Melbourne is well-known for having some pretty amazing graffiti, and we got our first glimpse of it on Brunswick Street and surrounds.

 

 

From Brunswick Street, we walked over a few blocks to Lygon Street for dinner.  On our airport shuttle on the Saturday before we headed to Tasmania, we had driven down Lygon Street and pretty quickly figured out it was the Little Italy of Melbourne.  All the restaurants were Italian.  They were all packed, and all smelled delicious.  On  a Wednesday night, it's a bit quieter, and the restaurants all seem to have a wrangler outside, doing their best to get people to eat at their establishment.  If you've been to Vegas, you know those people on the streets handing out cards with clubs or ladies?  These wranglers were almost like that.

Here's how we figured out where to eat.  We were trying to subtly read the menus, but at the first restaurant with a wrangler, as soon as he started talking to us, I kept walking.  Not interested.  Two doors later, the next wrangler offered us a glass of wine with dinner if we ate there.  Next door to him, the wrangler's tactic was "I'm not going to talk to you and bother you."  Good tactic. I was almost sold but kept moving.  However, the next lady was very good.  She got us by telling us her mother made the pasta and then offering us a free bottle of wine, free bruschetta, and free coffees.  Done. Sold.  The wine was decent.  The bruschetta was yum, the dinner did the job, and the coffees were a nice finishing touch.