The city has a beautiful river running through it, walking paths, extensive gardens and green spaces throughout. There is no wonder it was voted Top Livable City in the World for seven years. Melbourne is a huge city that is very multicultural. Fashion, food, art and coffee seemed to be the main attractions in Melbourne - well at least that's how we saw it.

Our AirBnB was located in a hip area of Melbourne with a ton of fabulous restaurants and cafes located within a 2 minutes walking distance. To be exact one of our favourite coffee shops was at the base of our condo tower - halleluiah. The famous restaurants food, for the most part, was a modern take on Asian cuisine. We ate waaaay more Thai and Vietnamese food than we ever thought we would. Their take on food is usually "elevated” or "amped up." Plate presentations where like art pieces getting presented to you. The Aussies favourite lines they use at the restaurants were "easy," "beautiful" and "too easy" when you order.

Eating our way through Melbourne wasn't the only thing we did, we also checked out some excellent boutique workout studies such as Pilates, spin, yoga, barre class and Chris did a boxing class. Luckily, we got deals for trying out the studio because it blew our minds that the average class was anywhere from $30-$40 per class.

Walking was our first choice to get around as the traffic is very congested in Melbourne. One day we drove to St. Kilda beach which was nice to check out and close to the city. It wasn't quite as amazing as everyone described it to be and maybe that was because it was so windy the day we went, or perhaps they don’t have many other beach options so they take what they can get. Jada, however, doesn’t care if the beach was made of dirt, rocks or sand. She loves just being at the beach playing. Watching the kite surfers, surfers and people watching is our favourite activity at the beach and making sure Cruz isn't eating sand is our least favourite activity.

One evening we went to the Night Market. It was full of locals, food trucks, live music and clothing/jewelry vendors. We had a lot of fun here, and it was of high quality! We also enjoyed an afternoon at the Botanic Gardens. It was way larger then we thought it was going to be with gondola boats taking people around the pond, indoor sanctuary, park and cafes. Our little picnic was going very well until all sorts of types of birds started peking at our lunch. Ha.

Over one of the weekends, we went on a 3-hour road trip along the Great Ocean Road to a town called Lorne. On the way, we stopped at a Fairy Castle for Jada to see all the Disney characters acting on mini sets. She enjoyed this. However, the huge playground at the very end was probably her favourite part. Lorne is located along a lovely beach front with cute little shops and cafes. We spent two nights here and quite liked waking up to beautiful sunrises, a quiet beach (only in the morning), a very nice playground for Jada and incredible lattes and breakfasts.

Before Chris got to Melbourne, he had heard nothing but amazing things about it so he thought that for sure he would want to move there after visiting. It turns out he liked Melbourne a lot but his expectations of the city where too high before going there. All in all - a magnificent city with fantastic food!

Love the Joneses,

XOXO