Melbourne

Of Australia's two biggest cities, Melbourne is the one that goes to the gallery, and Sydney the one with the better beaches. The National Gallery of Victoria alone is split across two sites, one at Federation Square and one over the Yarra on St Kilda Road. The centre is a nineteenth-century grid of boulevards, and the laneways and arcades between them now belong to the small bars and the coffee.

A day in the grid needs no transport. Coffee comes first, on Degraves Street, then over the river to the gallery on foot, or one stop on the free City Circle tram for anyone saving their legs.

Melbourne is generous with good suburbs. Carlton, a short tram ride or twenty minutes' walk north, has been the city's Little Italy since the postwar migration, and Lygon Street still pours the Italian coffee to prove it. South Yarra is leafy and given to shopping, on Chapel Street and Toorak Road, and has the Royal Botanic Gardens for a break from both.

We stayed in St Kilda, on the bay, twenty-odd minutes from the CBD on tram 96, in February, one of the two warmest months. The beach is nice enough, and in that heat nice enough will do; Sydney need not worry. The suburb is the reason to be there, and properly cool, with its cafes and bars along Fitzroy Street and the Esplanade. Melbourne eats very well, and its cafes make the case. For a bed nearer the galleries, the CBD has most of the big hotels.

Leaving town is a treat, and worth a whole day. The Dandenong Ranges rise about an hour's drive east, eucalypt and mountain-ash forest so wet and green that it passes for cloud forest. Without a car, the train to Belgrave takes around seventy minutes, and the Puffing Billy steam train carries on from there into the trees.

Melbourne sets its hotel prices by the sports calendar. From mid-January into February the Australian Open fills Melbourne Park, and the hotels with it, and in March the Grand Prix does the same at Albert Park for a week. With a ticket, that is part of the cost. Without one, it is the year's highest rates to be in a city busy with something you are missing. Spring, September to November, has the mildest, driest days. Winter is cold and often wet, and the cheapest and quietest time to come, which is not the same thing as the best.