Explore Melbourne

St Paul's Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral of Melbourne, on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets opposite Flinders Street Station. It was designed by the English Gothic Revival architect William Butterfield and completed in 1891; its three spires were built to a different design between 1926 and 1932. The interior has banded stonework and stained glass.

State Library Victoria, founded in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, is Australia's oldest public library and fills a city block on Swanston Street. Its domed La Trobe Reading Room opened in 1913, and its galleries show items from a collection of over five million, including Ned Kelly's armour and the diaries of Melbourne's European founders.

Flinders Street Station is Melbourne's central railway station on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets, on a site used by trains since 1854. The present building, designed by the railway employees James Fawcett and H. P. C. Ashworth and completed in 1909, has a copper dome, a clock tower and a row of clocks above the main entrance showing the next departures.

Federation Square is a public square and arts precinct opened in 2002 on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets, built over railway lines opposite Flinders Street Station. Its angular buildings clad in sandstone, zinc and glass house ACMI, the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria and the Koorie Heritage Trust.

Queen Victoria Market is a market at the northern edge of Melbourne's city centre, built in stages from the 1860s, officially opened in 1878 and listed on the National Heritage List. Across about seven hectares of open-sided sheds and halls, its stalls sell fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, deli goods, clothing and general goods.

The National Gallery of Victoria, founded in 1861, is Australia's oldest public art museum. Its international collection fills NGV International on St Kilda Road, a bluestone building by Roy Grounds opened in 1968 with a water wall at the entrance; Australian art is shown at the Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square.

St Patrick's Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Melbourne, in East Melbourne. Designed by William Wardell in Gothic Revival style and built of bluestone from 1858, it was consecrated in 1897 and its spires were completed in 1939. Pope Paul VI made it a minor basilica in 1974; inside are chapels around the sanctuary and stained-glass windows.

The Shrine of Remembrance is Victoria's war memorial in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road, dedicated in 1934 to those who served in the First World War and now honouring all Australians who have served. Designed by the veterans Phillip Hudson and James Wardrop, the granite building holds the Stone of Remembrance in its sanctuary, with a crypt below.

Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne cover 38 hectares on the south bank of the Yarra River, on land reserved for a botanic garden in 1846. Lawns, lakes and garden beds hold about 50,000 plants of 8,500 species in themed living collections, among them a fern gully, a herb garden and a children's garden.