Southbank

We've done a lot of walking so far on this trip (so far averaging around 6 miles per day), so today we gave ourselves a bit of a rest by taking the historic tram. Melbourne's 35 Circle Tram is a narrated tour around the outer border of the central business district.

While the other tram routes sport sleek aerodynamic modern cars, the Circle Tram uses historic W-class cars that were all built sometime between 1923-1956. We were lucky to get on a nearly empty one first thing in the morning and we could tell that it had been recently restored inside -- all the wood was varnished, the brass was shiny, and even the leather on the hand straps looked new.

We got off the tram near the Yarra river and walked across the bridge to the National Gallery of Victoria. The museum has a lot of modern art, including an impressive sculpture of the goddess Venus by Jeff Koons. You may have heard his name in the news recently when some yahoo knocked over one of his glass balloon dogs at a Miami art show and it shattered into a thousand pieces. I kept a respectful distance while admiring this piece, although it is made of steel so probably wouldn't shatter if it toppled over anyway. It looks like the windows behind me are being hit by a hurricane of rain, but that's just the iconic waterwall at the museum's entrance.

The gallery space inside the museum includes this stunning Great Hall topped by a gorgeous stained glass ceiling designed by Australian artist Leonard French. Twelve columns support 224 panels with stained-glass insets in 50 different colors.

We joined a free guided tour and were able to see many of the highlights in the collection. I really liked this floral still life by Maria van Oosterwijck -- I had never heard of her before. One of the few female painters of the Dutch Golden Age, she only painted about 30 paintings but her exquisite work was highly sought after by wealthy clients of the era including Louis XIV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and other European royals. 

The National Gallery had a very nice collection of impressionist works. As a Monet fan I was pleased to see this painting of Vétheuil. The water practically shimmers, with all the colors swimming together and reflecting the town's pastel skyline.

On the more modern end of the spectrum was a wall of iPads showcasing recent works by prolific British artist David Hockney. Over his lifetime, Hockney has worked in paint, print, photography, and video, but in recent years he has embraced even more modern technology by painting images using an app on the iPad. This image was one of a series called Yosemite Suite. 

After the museum, we crossed the street to have a closer look at the floral clock in the  Queen Victoria Gardens (it does seem like pretty much everything in this town was named after Queen Victoria). You can just see one of the clock's hands behind my head.

We grabbed a quick lunch and enjoyed an afternoon stroll along the south side of the Yarra river, cleverly called "Southbank". When it came to naming this area I'm just guessing that maybe "Queen Victoria" was already in use for another section of the riverbank somewhere in town. Anyway, we enjoyed seeing the city skyline from this side of the river.