Explore Brisbane

The Cathedral of St Stephen on Elizabeth Street is the Catholic cathedral of Brisbane. Its foundation stone was laid in 1863 and the Gothic Revival church was dedicated in 1874, with the facade spires added in 1884 and an extension completed in 1989. Beside it stands the small St Stephen's Chapel of 1850, built to a design by A. W. N. Pugin.

Brisbane City Hall, on King George Square, is the seat of Brisbane City Council and was completed in 1930. Its sandstone design draws on the Roman Pantheon and the campanile of St Mark's in Venice, with a clock tower that chimes every quarter hour. Inside are a domed auditorium, the Museum of Brisbane and guided tours that include the clock tower.

The City Botanic Gardens cover 18 hectares at Gardens Point in central Brisbane, beside the river, Parliament House and QUT. The site began in 1825 as the farm of the Moreton Bay penal settlement and is Queensland's oldest heritage garden. Paths lead past palms, figs, cycads, bamboo, ornamental ponds and a mangrove boardwalk along 1.2 km of river frontage.

The Story Bridge is a heritage-listed steel cantilever bridge over the Brisbane River, linking Fortitude Valley with Kangaroo Point. Designed by John Bradfield and opened in 1940, it is the longest cantilever bridge in Australia. It carries road traffic and footpaths, and guided climbs lead over its upper steelwork.

The Wheel of Brisbane is a 60-metre observation wheel in the Cultural Forecourt at the northern end of South Bank Parklands, put up in 2008 for the 20th anniversary of World Expo 88. Its 42 enclosed, air-conditioned gondolas make a ride of about 12 minutes, with views over the Brisbane River and the city centre.

QAGOMA is Queensland's state art museum, made up of two buildings 150 metres apart in the Cultural Centre at South Bank: the Queensland Art Gallery, in its 1982 building, and the Gallery of Modern Art, opened in 2006 on the riverbank. The collection spans Australian, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific art, and GOMA has a cinema and a children's art centre.

Queensland Museum Kurilpa is the Brisbane site of the state museum of Queensland, at the corner of Grey and Melbourne Streets in the Cultural Centre at South Bank. Its galleries cover natural history, dinosaurs and fossils, wildlife, and the cultures of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific peoples, and it houses the SparkLab science centre.

South Bank Parklands is a riverside park on the south bank of the Brisbane River, opposite the city centre, laid out on the site of World Expo 88 and opened in 1992. It has Streets Beach, a lagoon with a sand beach, the Grand Arbour walkway covered in bougainvillea, the Nepalese Peace Pagoda, rainforest paths, lawns, restaurants and a riverfront promenade.

The XXXX Brewery is the Castlemaine Perkins brewery on Milton Road in Milton, Brisbane, where beer has been brewed since 1878 and the XXXX brand is still made. Guided tours of about 90 minutes, for visitors aged 18 and over, cover the brewery's history and brewing process and end with a tasting in the XXXX Alehouse.

Mount Coot-tha Lookout is a heritage-listed lookout and kiosk on Sir Samuel Griffith Drive in Mount Coot-tha Reserve, about 7 km west of central Brisbane, built between 1918 and around 1950. Its viewing platform looks over the city towards Moreton Bay, and Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mount Coot-tha lie at the foot of the mountain.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is an 18-hectare wildlife park beside the Brisbane River in Fig Tree Pocket, about 12 km south-west of central Brisbane. Founded in 1927, it keeps more than 100 koalas and around 70 other Australian species, among them kangaroos in an open reserve, wombats, dingoes and platypus, with daily lorikeet feeding and talks.