Apartment Alkira – Boutique Melbourne Short Stay Accommodation

                      And you thought the world had enough red shoes?  Well the State of Design festival will have you thinking again. The extensive programme of events explores Design in all its many guises, from product to architecture to TV and film.  It runs until July [...]

What to do this weekend?

It’s not often we do a big plug for Melbourne accommodation that isn’t Apartment Alkira.  Oh, if we’re fully booked and we can’t accommodate you we have a few places we recommend, but as proud parents, we do rather think Alkira is one of the best value, independent, unique short stay apartments in Melbourne. It’s [...]

A terrific resource for any visitor to Melbourne – be it for a “short-stay” or “long”, www.threethousand.com is a fab website profiling off-beat and slightly obscure Melbourne happenings. They don’t do advertorials so you can be sure what’s recommended hasn’t been tainted by the lure of advertising pennies. For a good guide to what’s on [...]

Aren’t these fluorescent green gnomes just something else? You gotta have them, right?   Well everything in this wee little boutique of curios is just the same. Delightful, whimsical and quite often just gorgeous. The gnomes are at the zanier end of the collection – the small porcelain butterflies would suit a brader range of [...]

Very cute name, huh?   Ok, well maybe it’s just my childhood associations with the word ‘dispensary’ that’s got me addicted to this place (lolly dispensary, chocolate dispensary, shall I go on?), but this place gets into your veins.  Sure it’s full of gorgeousness of the mostly ‘non-critical’ variety, but really, who could walk out [...]

e.g.etal deals in seriously groovy designer jewellery.   I fell upon it a few years ago when it was located in Little Collins Street and neither my wallet nor my neckline have been the same since. You know it’s going to be a few notches above what you’ll find on rotating department store racks when their [...]

The Manchester Unity Building Crn Swanston St & Collins St This is the sort of building you look up and expect to see Clark Kent paragliding down in his Superman tights. Not so much strictly art deco as neo-gothic, the building has a myriad of vertical, terracotta clad ‘fins’ streching upwards towards the bell tower. [...]

Collins Street to Little Collins For a chocoholic like me, the highlight of the 19th century Block Arcade is not the intricate etched glass roof.  Nor is it the magnificent decorative wrought iron and timber supports cupping the glass.  Or, in fact the elaborate mosaic floors - apparently the largest in Australia.  For me – and many a chocoholic, the thrill [...]