Just down the street from The Gasworks Park (and our house) is this great little wine bar - part of The Graham restaurant. They have a great wine list (obvi) and awesome appetizers - Pork Belly Skewers with Black Pepper Caramel...who thinks of these things? We may or may not have spent a couple of Saturday nights here over the last month.
This is a cool old church turned apartment building. The turret up there on the top left - that's someone's balcony with ocean views.
On the other hand, just down the street is this church, where you can have confession. And, there is a Sausage Sizzle on Saturdays. And sometimes yoga. And also movie night. It serves many purposes.
The Pokie - open from 10am daily, and taking bets (with bookies) on pretty much anything. Dogs, ponies, footy, soccer, anywhere in the world...
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Every little neighborhood has at least one Pokie - gambling of all types
is legal and encouraged...therefore, they make it easy by having a Pokie
every couple of blocks. |
The local tile company, which also doubles as a bar.
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The City Tiler is awesome. They sell kitchen and bath tiles by day, and
by night it's a bar with live music. They have one of the best outdoor
areas in Port Melbourne. |
Continuing down towards the beach you'll find one of the five local grocers - three of them are organic, like this one, the other two are large chains.
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While Thomas Dux is closer to our condo, it has a pretty small selection
and much of it is organic, which means that instead of being 2X what
we're used to paying, it's 3-4X. |
Just a couple of blocks from our house and a block off of the beach, you'll find this beauty...it's a hot-mess on Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings, and the afternoon session on Sundays. By the way, Hotel doesn't really mean hotel, it means bar. Not confusing at all...especially after a couple of beers.
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This place is crazy after dark. It's pretty much a
meat market. |
Just down the block from The Exchange Hotel is one of the best things about Port Melbourne - Third Wave Cafe. They have unbelievably good coffee, to die for panini's, and fantastic brekkie - we love this place, and are there at least twice a week.
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Our favorite weekend cafe
(and a Top 10 Coffee House in Melbourne). |
Everyone has a "local" - a local pub that they frequent...kind of like Cheers, where everyone knows your name. Well, ours is oddly called The Local. We go there at least once a week for Parma & Pot (Chicken Parm and a pot of beer) or for their comedy night on Tuesday's...we have been to Comedy Night three times, and we've gotten free tickets each time - not sure how they are going to sustain that business model.
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| Our local watering hole - The Local. |
Once you get to the beach, you'll find a running path that goes for a long, long way...you can follow it all of the way out to the opening of the Port Phillip Bay - perhaps 75km or more...we don't run that far. It's so nice to run on the beach - you get good wind resistance most days, but no hills.
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The running path by the beach. Those lamp posts...
ignore those - they are never lit. |
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| View of the beach looking east. It was 9 degrees and people were swimming. |
As you continue down the beach, you'll run into a couple of cafe's and restaurants. This one is in our Cheap Eats book, with apparently good coffee and opera.
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They play opera music VERY loud. All the time. I came running around
that corner one day and almost got impaled by a guy carrying a table -
legs out. |
You'll also see many of these 'row homes'. They are traditional Melbourne style, with very narrow street frontage, but very long. Many of them have their porches glassed in so that they can enjoy the balcony without the bitterly cold southernly winds.
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Beach front Melbournian-style homes...many that have been there for
years and have been renovated. |
One of the few truly beach-front restaurants - and one without any vowels. They have the best hamburger that we have found - it has a ton of toppings, including pickled beets. Sounds odd, tastes delicious. They also have the best french toast and lots of fresh squeezed juices.
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| Beach front dining. But only from 8a - 4p. No late nighters here. |
In addition to the running path, there is also a bike path...that has traffic lights. I love this.
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| Go, go, go. |
And, they mark which side of the bike path you should be on...bikes drive just like the cars, on the left.
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It was an awesome winter day - most winter days
it's rainy/misty...but today it was all sunshine
and blue skies. |
The Victorian is a cafe/bar that we just recently found. Again, only open from 7a - 3p...and we just found out today that they are "temporarily" closed...not sure if that means that they are on holiday or if their limited hours limited their ability to succeed (oddly enough).
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| Love the building signs... |
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The Victorian. They have/had a "coffee flight"
so that you could try different varietals of coffee.
Too bad we hadn't done that yet... |
And, the Post. I took a picture of mailbox because if I took a picture of the actual post office, it would be closed. Again, they are very customer friendly and are open from 10a - 4p, Monday - Friday. No late evenings, no weekend work. This is as much as we ever see of them...this and their closed shops.
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| Wonder if they actually make money...unlike the USPS. |
Hope you enjoyed this little {read: long} tour of Port Melbourne...hopefully you will get to experience it when you come to visit us! We'd love to show you around!
