Melbourne Shopping Tips by aussiedoug

Name of Shop: Mary Martin Books Cafe Bar

If you've browsed a few of my pages you know I love bookshops. Now when they're combined with an equally good cafe then I'm almost in seventh heaven.

Don't know how I found out about this place. Read it somewhere (but not on VT this time) and found it easily enough as Melbourne is a pretty good city to navigate around being not too big & laid out along a reasonabley straightforward rectangular grid.

What To Buy: Only having my daypack with me I didn't do my usual buying which would have been a book each for my twin girls and a couple of books for me.

So, and this is a rarity for daddy. I just bought two books for myself.

Would have liked something good on Melbourne, but the only possibilities were a bit heavy for the daypack.

So after a significant period of browsing, after all that's half the fun in a bookshop particularly isn't it, I purchased the following two books:

"Sahara" by Michael Palin. If you don't know Michael Palin from one of his travel series on TV then you might know him from the Movie, "A Fish Called Wanda" I still remember him in that movie with a chip (french fry) stuck up each nostril. If you're old enough you might even remember him from the "Monty Python" TV series back in the late 60's. I'm about half way through reading this at the moment & a fascinating & enjoyable read it is. Not to mention highly informative.

Also I bought a lovely hardcover book called, "The Great Ocean Road". Photographed & written by Rodney Hyett. Superb photographs of a beautiful area of Victoria. An area I surfed with a too many years ago & must take my girls down to see it one day.

What To Pay: Average prices for books in Australia. For European (especially western Europeans) travellers you'll find books cheaper here than home, but for U.S. travellers you may well find them at least a little more expensive.

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Theme: Books
Phone: +61 3 9663 9633
Address: 8/108 Bourke Street. The "Top End" of Bourke St
Directions: It's about 2 blocks east of Bourke Street Mall.
Only about 5-7 minutes walk from Flinders Street Station & Federation Square.

Name of Shop: Hill of Content Bookshop

They say they've been "serving Melbourne's discerning readers since 1922" so it's nice to know that now I've become one of them even though I'm from Sydney. lol!

Now seriously, from what I saw stocked on their shelves in my too brief sojourn (I was in a hurry to meet Anne12 for our lunch meet at midday), there was an excellent range of what I might term "serious" books.

What made it special for me was not being a part of a "chain" of bookstores. Also it's great to be chatting with another genuine Bibliophile such as myself as the lady serving/helping me was.

What To Buy: Seeing as how I was in Melbourne I wanted to buy something about Melbourne, but there wasn't too much available, especially that would fit easily (& lightly) in my daypack that would then transfer, in the same way, to my check through luggage on the plane.

So I settled on two books & yes both for me!

Firstly, a neat little book on Trams called:

"The Melbourne Tram Book", a neat little tome of just 80 pages with lots of neat colour (& some black & white) photos & also diagrams. This was a really good souvenir of my Melbourne trip this time.

Secondly, a more "serious" book entitled:

"The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne", an interesting read about the growth of Melbourne through the 1800's in particular, although this edition does include an afterword that deals with the 1900's. It'll take me a while to get through this one, but it will be a very interesting read indeed.

What To Pay: These two together cost me a total of $70.90. American visitors will find books more expensive in Australia, but western European visitors should find them a bit cheaper based on my Paris book buying.

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Theme: Books
Phone: 61 3 966 29472
Address: 86 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Directions: Up the "top" end of Bourke Street towards Spring street & the Victorian Parliament Building. If travelling around the free city circle tram you alight at the Spring Street stop.
Other Contact: 61 3 9662 25 27 (facsimile)

Name of Shop: Ina Barry Gold and Silversmith

For me the individuality of the firstly the name of the business, but then upon browsing the windows, the designs themselves appealed to me for their boldness & individuality.

I can't explain the intangible aspect of liking this place, but there was something I felt about it that sort of drew me back to it even after I had walked past it about half a dozen times inside two days. It wasn't just the urgency of buying something for my wife on the last afternoon before my plane was flying out. Mind you that's when I did buy something for her. lol!

What To Buy: I found a lovely pair of pearl ear-rings (on silver, not yellow gold) that perfectly matched a pearl necklace I bought her in Beijing.

I could also have bought a matching bracelet, but that really would have been straining the budget that was already overstrained!

I'll check on my next visit & if it's still there I will definitely get it then.

What To Pay: These ear-rings set me back $260 so they weren't cheap, but they were by no means expensive. I think for what I got, the quality, they were quite a reasonable buy.

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Theme: Jewelry
Phone: 61 3 9650 3355
Address: Shop 36 Block Place, Melbourne
Directions: If coming though the Block Arcade from Collins St, it's straight ahead with Cafe Duome on your left & Haigh Chocolates (on this side) on your right & just after these 2 places. If coming from Little Collins St on your left just before Haigh's Chocs.
Website: www.inabarryjewellery.com
Other Contact: 61 3 9650 3369 (facsimile)