By MARCUS SCRIVEN

On reflection: Melbourne sits in picturesque fashion on the banks of the River Yarra


It is emblematic of the defining moment in the city's past - the discovery of gold in 1851. More was unearthed here than in the rushes of California and Alaska combined. Within a year, the city population rose from 77,000 to 340,000. It was the dawn of 'Marvellous Melbourne'.

In the following decades, swaggering new buildings went up: not just the Library, but the colonnaded State Parliament, the lavish Royal Exhibition Building, which required seven million bricks, and grand private houses.

There was also what would become, to sports-crazed Melburnians, the city's most sacred icon: the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), known locally as 'the G'.


Melbourne's architecture - including Flinders Street Station - is a throwback to the Victoria gold rush


The latest addition, the Crown Metropol, is more subtle. The 27th floor has a spa, gym and an infinity pool, so you feel you're about to float out. Up above, there's the top floor, '28', an exclusive lounge including a 'sky bar' and terrace. The views are spectacular - to the south and east are a cityscape. To the northeast, the world changes.

Beyond the ochre and red of Flinders Street Station is the brazenly modern Federation Square, exhibition spaces and galleries linked by inventive geometrics.

Closer in, shards of steel and glass soar skywards, including 984ft Eureka Tower that has the Southern Hemisphere's highest public vantage point.

Its lifts hurtle you to the top in under 40 seconds. There, it's time for the 'Edge' - a glass-floored, glass-walled cage jutting out from the building and leaving you suspended over the city.

After this, a decent drink may be in order, possibly amid the extravagance of the Hopetoun Tea Rooms, part of the stately face of the Block Arcade, built in 1892, off Collins Street.

Numerous older buildings in the city centre have been inspirationally re-adapted: the colonnades of the Old Post Office loom over a clutch of fashion houses; the Nicholas Building on Swanston Street, one of a scattering of Art Deco gems, is home to rag-trade retro and a poetry bookshop. Meanwhile, everywhere else - or so it seems - has become a bar.


Travel Facts
Qantas (08457 747 767, www.qantas.com) flies twice daily from London Heathrow to Melbourne. Return flights from £920.

The Crown Metropol has rooms from £200 per night: www.crownmetropol.com.au.
For more information visit, www.australia.com.

source: dailymail