Canberra

When visiting the heart of Australia, you need about a week to be able to take in all the sights and sounds. There are plenty of things to see and activities to do in Australia’s capital city, Canberra. This beautifully planned city is the largest inland city in Australia. It is located about midway between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It also rivals these two cities in terms of being the largest and most progressive city in the country. It was in an international contest among the three cities where Canberra as the country’s capital city was chosen based on the city’s design. This planned city incorporates some amount of natural vegetation along with the city’s infrastructure development. The end of the Second World War also marked the start of the city’s emergence as one of the most developed cities in that side of the globe. The great many historic sites you have to visit would take a number of days to complete.

What better way to start your tour of the capital than to visit the Parliament House. Also in the city is the High Court of Australia. To learn more about the history of the city and the country, you can visit the Australian War Memorial and the National Museum of Australia. The National Gallery of Australia and the National Library Museum should not be missed in your itinerary. The library and the museum are architectural wonders in themselves. You can also look through old movies, books, and artifacts at the National Archives for a deeper understanding of the country’s historic past. For more historical feel, you can visit the oldest public building still standing in Canberra, the St. John the Baptist Anglican Church at Reid in suburban Canberra. At the courtyard of the church, you will find the graves of the pioneers of the city who presumably died of contagious diseases like smallpox and measles.

Interestingly, this planned city is built based on the Y plan where the city’s urban development is built around central shopping and commercial areas that are linked by freeways shaped like the letter Y. Follow the Y and you will likely run into the suburbs’ local shops as well as larger shopping centers. Near these commercial centers are schools and other local facilities. Entertainment venues could also be found in Canberra and its suburbs giving you a taste of the local cultural scene after you have had your fill of historical sites. The two largest live theater venues in Canberra are the Canberra Theater and Playhouse and the Llewellyn Hall. The city’s first performing arts venue, the Albert Hall, remains standing and still hosts a number of concerts and productions mainly by the Canberra Repertory Society and the Canberra Philharmonic Society. A number of bars and nightclubs also offer you live entertainment. If you visit Canberra in February or in March, you can catch the Canberra Multicultural Festival and the Celebrate Canberra Festival respectively. Other festivals include the National Folk Festival, the Summernats and the Royal Canberra Show.