It was over a year since our last visit to Melbourne, longer for hubby, and it was the second planned trip this year! Anyway we finally took the risk of no lockdowns during our six day trip (although that has come back to bite us on the backside!) This visit was to catch up with Laurence and Maddy, a weekend on Philip Island and a short trip to Sydney.
We decided to stay near them so as to maximise our time together and chose The Hamptons on Chapel Street.
Arriving late on a Tuesday afternoon, we checked into a very nice one bedroom apartment and met with Laurence and Maddy for dinner just around the corner.
Tulum Turkish Restaurant, Balaclava
This is one of my favourite restaurants in Melbourne, it has some very tasty tapas on the menu.




A delicious start to our stay in Melbourne
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Over the next couple of days we spent time walking the streets and soaking up the sights.
The street art around Melbourne is always so different and vibrant. I took photos of some fabulous murals on our walk around the city.
The above two murals are by Mike Maka from Melbourne (Australia) a painter who works in a variety of media, mainly on walls, canvas and illustration on paper. He has travelled and created work around the world, painting the Berlin Wall to the River Ganges. Source: Street-Artwork
The mural on the right was actually blocked off and I had to step on a small wall and balance on hubby’s back while lowering the net to snap it!
This brightly coloured mural was just outside our apartment block, such beautiful colours.
Painted by Heesco
Heesco – a Mongolian born artist based in Melbourne. Have a look at his website, he is by far the best artist I have seen. His silo murals are extraordinary.
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Chez Bob, Armadale
One night we had dinner in a cute French restaurant out in one of the suburbs east of Melbourne. A fabulous evening with great food and service. We ate snails, scallops, pate, beef tartare, rabbit pie, duck and beef. A gourmet feast.





G2 Korean BBQ, CBD
Maddy chose G2, one of her favourite restaurants in Melbourne for our last night here. This is a very authentic restaurant with a burner of coals on the table. The staff that night were truly run off their feet as they like to cook for you. Although we did pretty well on our own.




I ordered a delicious rice wine mango cocktail, although did not mean for a jug only a glass!
As always it was a lovely few days catching up with Laurence and Maddy. But we still had the weekend ahead on Philip Island.

That’s a lot of variety in food and lovely murals Ali!
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Thanks 😁
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AS always your blogs are interesting, colourful and plenty of photos.
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Great murals, Ali! So are you locked down again? So stop/start in Melbourne 😦
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We are in quarantine in Perth in our own house for two weeks because we were in Melbourne ! Hubby is going slowly mad and so are dogs who have just been in kennels ..at least we have a big garden
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No end to it, is there, but at least you had a gourmet weekend 🙂 🙂
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Yes it was a pretty good trip
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So pleased you managed to get away to Melbourne and meet up with your son and girlfriend Alison. I love Korean food and can’t wait to return to Seoul when it’s possible. Shame you ended up getting quarantined, the same thing happened to us last summer when we returned from a visit to Portugal. Fortunately the two weeks passed quickly and as we had good weather we spent much of the time in our large garden. Younger son was working from home anyway so he didn’t have to use up any valuable leave for the quarantine. Have a good weekend. Marion
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Thanks Marion..I can do some blogging now! It was worth it to see them both ..dogs are going slightly crazy but they can run around in the garden
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Lucky you got there and had a great trip bearing in mind the current lockdown.
Great to know there is more street art to see whenever I next go down there.
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A lot of the murals are tucked away up side streets
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I guess you would need to know where they are to see them.
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I just saw them as we were walking around, I think there are a couple of websites saying where they are. In Perth there is a great Urban street map detailing them all.
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I shouldn’t have looked at those pictures just before I was about to prepare my simple stir-fry meal. Now I feel very dissatisfied and I’ve altered my plans and am instead opting for a cheese and onion toastie. Bang goes my low-calorie meal.
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Haha sorry Mari, we really had some gourmet dinners
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Lucky to have squeezed that trip in to Melbourne (except for the two weeks later) and I love the photos of the murals, food and family.
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Thanks Jo, hope to see you soon
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These are great to see and read about Alison! Nice to be out and about again I bet. Hope your quarantine is going OK.
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Yes all good have my friends and neighbours doing our shopping..I think our two boys (dogs) wonder what’s happened to their walks though
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Looking through your pictures made me so hungry, everything looked so delicious! Beautiful murals too! Looking forward to seeing more of your trip! 🙂
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Always good food in Melbourne, sadly no more trips for a while. Until this border closure nonsense stops!
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Hey, I think I missed this post of yours as this is the first time i’ve seen it. And where are these murals? Waaaaah how come I haven’t seen them before. Oh shucks, that’s not good!
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Hey Teresa, I just went into this post and I can’t see the photos ..weird 🤔 but thanks for your comments
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