Buses, boats and trams

We started out this morning with a free breakfast. Our tour company supposedly provides breakfast every day of this trip, and that's probably for the best. When we finished up, we met our tour group in the lobby for a bus trip around Melbourne. 

Brigitte (I have now learned how she spells it- thanks for checking, Cas) isn't as knowledgable about Melbourne as she is about other cities on this trip, so after a little coaxing, she got our bus driver to speak about some of the things we saw. We stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral first. It was beautiful. I'm a Protestant, but I have a lot of respect for the way Catholics build a church. I mean, look:

 

The whole place is pretty striking, inside and out. Cas has a lot more photos. 

Back on the bus, we drove past several facilities that were built for the 1956 Olympics before making our way to the Shrine of Rememberance. It was in honor of the soldiers who fought in World War I, and it was really something. 

 

You can actually walk up to the balcony on top and catch a brilliant view of the city. 

 

Our last stop with the group on the bus was Victoria's market. It was part flea market, part food court, part grocery store, part farmers market. That's a lot of parts. We ate lunch there, then walked through the fruit and vegetable area to pick up a pair of apples to eat on our walk.

We told our tour director that we would stay there for the afternoon, so the rest of the group got on the bus and headed back to the hotel without us. 

We stopped to take a look at a map, deciding to go on a sightseeing boat tour down the Yarra River. The captain of this particular boat was quite amusing. Going down a river gave us a slightly different perspective than driving in a bus. Besides, one of our guidebooks featured a buy one, get one free coupon for that trip. I can't pass up a good coupon.

After we got off the boat, we walked over to Fitzroy Gardens, where the good people of Australia have placed the childhood home of Captain Cook. They had disassembled it, shipped and reassembled it in that place. Evidently, they're pretty fond of the fellow. 

We also took a walk through the conservatory there, taking a look at some of the more interesting flowers.

 

Finally, when we had walked enough, we found a tram station. In the center of the city, all of the trams are free. Given the size of the crowd, a lot of people knew about this. But, the train station nearest our hotel was also a very popular departure point for most of our fellow passengers. 

We are about to head out to dinner, and I'm not sure where were going. It's a Friday night in Melbourne, and the first place we walked into it was so crowded that we walked right back out again. Anyhow, it's good to sit for a moment after a day of that magnitude. Still, it's probably time to put the shoes back on and go out for a meal.