Explore Melbourne

Luna Park is an amusement park on the St Kilda foreshore of Port Phillip Bay, opened in 1912 by the American showman J. D. Williams and the Phillips brothers. Visitors enter through a giant face with a wide open mouth between two towers, and the rides include the Great Scenic Railway, a wooden roller coaster running since the park opened.

Scienceworks is a science and technology museum in Spotswood, in Melbourne's inner west, run by Museums Victoria since it opened in 1992. Hands-on galleries, demonstrations and the Melbourne Planetarium sit in an industrial-style building beside the Spotswood Pumping Station of 1897, whose steam engines are part of the visit.

Rippon Lea Estate in Elsternwick, south-east of central Melbourne, is a mansion built from 1868 for the businessman and politician Sir Frederick Sargood to designs by the architect Joseph Reed. The National Trust looks after the house and about 14 acres of 19th-century pleasure gardens; visitors walk the gardens and see the mansion's rooms on guided tours.

Pentridge Prison in Coburg, north of central Melbourne, held prisoners from 1851 until it closed in 1997. Its bluestone walls, gatehouse and cell blocks now stand within a housing and shopping precinct, and the National Trust runs guided tours inside H Division, the former maximum-security unit, telling the stories of inmates and warders.