There was a time when you could walk from Flinders Street to La Trobe Street without having to walk on the major streets, except to cross a couple.  You can’t do that any more.  Now that Myer is redeveloping their Lonsdale store, or what was the Lonsdale store.  Once you get to Myer, you have to go around one city block to get to Melbourne Central.  Hopefully, it will all be connected again, one day.

I feel I should explain a couple or things.  I realised a week or so back, that some countries have different definitions for Arcades.  Here, in Melbourne, they are usually undercover shopping areas, like the one above.  There are usually little shops in them. These days the shops are usually quaint, one of a kind type of shops.  Usually, not always.

The other thing is that I took these photos some time again, and you have seen some of them before.  You will know which ones, I’m sure.

The Arcades often have beautiful architectural details, and if you love photographing architecture, then you will love our arcades.  Many of them date back to the Victorian Era and have those sorts of details.

The city of Melbourne is full of beautiful examples of Victorian architecture.  I think that is mainly because much of it was built when Victoria was rich from the gold rush.  When you look around for that period of architecture, you will understand what I mean.  We have a lot, it is very ornate and very beautiful.

Last weekend when I did the Laneways, people mentioned the above Lane, it is Central Place and a very busy place indeed.  It is mainly little cafes and places to eat.  This is probably one of the best places in the city to find a good coffee.  There are many places to get good coffee, but this lane, and Degraves street, at the other end, are very popular.

Some of the main arcades have arcades coming off them as well.  Different styles, different stores. You can really see the style in this image.  This is off the Royal Arcade.

If you start at Flinders street and confine yourself between Swanston Street and Elizabeth Street, you won’t get lost.  Just keep heading in the general direction of North.  Once you get to the Bourke Street Mall, you will have make some decisions to get to Melbourne Central.

There are a huge number of Arcades in those areas.  It would be hard to visit them all.  Then there are ones, that only locals know.  It is a very popular thing to do in Melbourne, to go Arcade shopping.

As for taking photos, well, you can see what I have done.  Look up, look down, and look at the details.  Most of the arcades do not have a problem with people taking photos, there are some that do.  Australia on Collins has security guards that will tell you to stop taking photos.  Though most arcades don’t seem to mind.

Melbourne Central is a little different.  They do have rules, but they seem open to people photographing the area where the shot tower is and accept it has become one of Melbourne’s Icons and people will photograph it.  The same with the clock in the same area.  I don’t know how you would go photographing the rest of the place, you might find photography is not allowed.  I have a couple of shots here of some lights in the cafeteria, I don’t know if they were allowed, but since it was a fairly public area, I didn’t think it would matter.

Here a heap more images, I have tried to put which arcade the photo is from.

I have no idea how the arcades in Melbourne compare with other cities, but we do have some lovely one.  If it is raining and you want to take photos, then the arcades are the perfect place to go.  The other thing that is nice about them is that you don’t need to worry what time of the day it is either, although, having said that, you do need to consider other people, there will be times when they are very popular and very busy.

So if you are visiting Melbourne it is a very iconic thing to do.  I will do a self guided tour for this as well.  The self guided tour will give you ideas of where to go to take photos and what to look for.  I will also do a map.