Melbourne: City overview

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If Sydney is Australia's glamorous socialite, Melbourne is its hipper, younger, southern sister. Lounging on the banks of the brown Yarra river, hugging Port Phillip Bay, it's the heart and the height of Australian culture, cuisine, fashion and sport.

It may lack the world-renowned landmarks of Sydney, but Melbourne's attractive assets combine to create a place that's less about sights you should see: slip instead into a more comfortable way of life. In their city-sized pleasure garden, its leisure-loving, sports-mad inhabitants flit from beach to boutique to cafe to restaurant, taking in a game of Aussie Rules football along the way.

But it's not just about the pursuit of hedonism. From its fishing village beginnings through 19th century goldrush boomtown, this most livable of cities is now Australia's largest seaport and the center of its automotive and technology industries.

Melbourne's string of neighborhoods, each with its own character -- from slightly seedy St Kilda to bookish Carlton -- gives the city a pleasantly village-y feel. Its sprawl is fueled by its diverse immigrant population, each chasing their quarter-acre slice of the Australian Dream, and this magical mix gives Melbourne a melting-pot flavor -- from the coffee to the cuisine to the changeable weather, the city has a very European vibe in parts.

Whether watching a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, catching a film at the IMAX, placing a bet at the Crown Casino or taking part in a street art festival, Melburnians' lust for life is infectious. Tanned, toned and fashionably dressed in offbeat designs, they dart around the city's wide, tram-crossed streets and mazes of cobbled alleyways, in search of the latest hidden hotspot or coffee house to grace Australia's capital of understated cool.

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