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.

The Old Melbourne Gaol is a bluestone prison on Russell Street, begun in 1839 and in use until 1924. Some 133 people were hanged here, among them the bushranger Ned Kelly. Its three-storey cell block holds exhibits on prisoners and staff, including death masks, and visitors can also enter the neighbouring City Watch House.

Melbourne Skydeck is the observation deck on level 88 of Eureka Tower, a 297-metre residential skyscraper in Southbank completed in 2006. Its glass-walled floor looks out over the city, the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay, and The Edge, a glass cube, extends three metres out from the building with visitors inside.

Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium stands on the north bank of the Yarra River beside the King Street Bridge. Opened in 2000 in a building designed to resemble a moored ship, it shows king and gentoo penguins, crocodiles, sharks and rays, with a 2.2-million-litre oceanarium at its centre that visitors walk around.

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 Fox Classic Car Collection is a car museum opened in 1997 in the Queen's Warehouse, a heritage-listed building on Collins Street in Docklands, once a customs store and Australia's first stamp and banknote printing works. Its cars, gathered by the transport businessman Lindsay Fox, include Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Porsche and Ferrari models made between 1923 and 2024.

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.

Melbourne Zoo opened in Royal Park, Parkville, about 4 km north of the city centre, in 1862. Around 250 species live in habitats grouped by region: gorillas in an African rainforest, orangutans and tigers in an Asian rainforest, and kangaroos, koalas and wombats in an Australian bush section, alongside a butterfly house and a reptile house.

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.