Located on the leafy banks of the Yarra River, Australia's second city is a place of contradictions and hidden charms. It is at the same time cosmopolitan and suburban, cultivated and football crazy, conservative and a haven for the avant-garde. Visitors come for its shopping, restaurants, cafés and nightlife.

CROWN TOWERS HOTEL
8 Whiteman Street, Southbank (00 61 3 9292 6868; fax: 9292 6600; www.crowntowers.com.au; email: hotelreservations@crownltd.com.au). Expensive but salubrious large, multistorey building next to the casino. All 482 rooms have city or bay views and 42 inch plasma televisions. The shops downstairs in the Crown Entertainment Complex include Versace, Prada, Burberry and Louis Vuitton. £££

HOTEL LINDRUM
26 Flinders Street, (00 61 3 9668 1111; fax: 9668 1199; www.hotellindrum.com.au). Built in a former pool hall, named after player Walter Lindrum, this 59-room red-brick boutique hotel is clean-lined, spacious and slick. Clubby rooms are plush, with mood lighting, and all the usual extras, plus free in-house movies and CD menus. Deluxe rooms have amazing bay or high arched windows overlooking Melbourne Park, the Botanic Gardens and the Cricket Grounds. £

HOTEL SOFITEL
25 Collins Street (00 61 3 9653 0000; fax: 9650 4261; www.sofitelmelbourne.com.au). More sedately priced, but still with five stars, this sits at the 'Paris end' of Collins Street and, if you squint a bit, this nice part of town may just look like the grande dame herself. Smart, well-equipped rooms and particularly good for business travelers. The Club Sofitel rooms are located on levels 48 and 49, with views of the either the park, gardens and cityscapes or Port Phillip Bay, Southbank or the Yarra River. Guests staying in Club rooms receive fresh flowers daily, complimentary water and clothes pressing. Plus, private check in, daily continental breakfast and evening drinks. ££

PARK HYATT
1 Parliament Square (00 61 3 9224 1234; fax: 3 9224 1200; melbourne.park.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp). The 240-room Park Hyatt is on Fitzroy Gardens, also opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral and near the Central Business District. The building is a modern block, and has big rooms, many with a balcony. Even the most modest rooms (the Park King or Twin) are 500-square feet in size with deep soaking tubs and marble bathrooms, enormous walk-in wardrobes and, in some, working fireplaces. There is a spa on the ninth floor, a tennis court, plus a gym with saunas and a 25-metre pool in a colonnaded hall. Downstairs there is a cigar lounge and the stylish, open-kitchen restaurant radii (see Where to eat). £££

THE ADELPHI HOTEL
187 Flinders Lane (00 61 3 9650 7555; fax: 61 3 9650 2710; www.adelphi.com.au). One of the most interesting places to stay in town, this hotel was designed by Denton Corker Marshall, the architectural firm that designed the coloured gateway to the city. It is full of bold primary colours and angles, plus, a mirrored foyer, black carpets and stainless steel sinks - a bit like The Jetsons meets Blade Runner. Rooms have futon-style beds, Broadband and Wi-Fi and LCD televisions. There is also the unique rooftop pool. ££

THE LYALL
14 Murphy Street (00 61 3 9868 8222; fax: 61 3 9820 1724; www.thelyall.com). This all-suite hotel is a leafy-street refuge favoured by the quietly famous (Melbourne's own Olivia Newton-John) and the famously noisy (Paris Hilton). Spacious rooms have exclusive custom-made furniture, beautifully textured finishes and fabrics. There are also wide-screen TVs, fully-equipped kitchens, balconies with teak furniture, and spa baths in some suites. Bistro Lyall is an elegant but relaxed dining spot. The spa's Vichy shower and jet-lag steam-bath treatments use Elemis geranium oil. £

THE MANSION HOTEL
Werribee Park, K Road, Werribee (00 61 3 9731 4000; fax 61 3 9731 4001; www.mansionhotel.com.au; email: mansion@bigpond.com). The 91-room Mansion Hotel is located 30 minutes' drive from the heart of Melbourne's central business district. It occupies the former St Joseph's seminary wing of the historic Werribee Park Mansion and offers sweeping views of heritage-listed gardens and the winery and polo field, just metres away. Rooms come in three categories: Heritage rooms, Deluxe rooms and Spa suites. Popular with conference organisers, the Mansion Hotel is also perfect for couples and families: there is a relaxing spa area, a gorgeous 17-metre indoor pool and an open-air zoo and golf course next door. Overlooking the gardens, Joseph's restaurant serves modern European food. The Mansion Hotel was featured in The Hot List 2001. ££

THE PRINCE HOTEL
Prince of Wales Complex, 2 Acland Street, St. Kilda, (00 61 3 9536 1111; fax: 9536 1100; www.theprince.com.au). This Art Deco hotel is one of Melbourne's hippest places to hang out. There are views of Port Phillip Bay and some of Melbourne's smartest attractions. Rooms are models of restrained, contemporary luxury, with Bose WAVE radios, Loewe televisions and dvd players, plus broadband access. In addition to Circa, the much-lauded restaurant, which also offers 24 hour room service (see Where to Eat), there's the vodka bar Mink, a café, a bakery (Il Fornaio) and a bottle shop. ££

ASIANA
181 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park (00 61 3 9696 6688). This is a 15-minute taxi ride from central Melbourne, in Albert Park close to St Kilda. Here, in an intimate dining room, co-owner Randolph Cheung brings together his passion for the best wines of the world to match the spicy food of Asia, an approach originally undertaken by Robert Vifian at Tan Dinh in Paris and one which wine-buyer Christine Parkinson pursues for Alan Yau's London restaurants, including Hakkasan. Feast on scallops in coconut milk, tempura of Japanese soft-shell crab and delicious Peking Duck.

BAR LOURINHA
37 Little Collins Street (00 61 3 9663 7890; www.barlourinha.com.au). Bar Lourinha, close to the theatre district, is so laid-back that only a sign in the window lets you know that you have arrived. The interior is reminiscent of tapas bars in San Sebastian, northern Spain, with an L-shaped bar, two long high tables each seating about 10 and an open view into the kitchen revealing chef/proprietor Matt McConnell and his team hard at work. A serious range of wines by the glass is complemented by a great menu of dishes including enormous local mussels steamed with chilli.

BECCO
11-25 Crossley Street (00 613 9663 3000; fax: 613 9663 3949; www.becco.com.au). This used to be an Italian restaurant called Pellegrini's, which has been here since the late 50s. The front coffee bar still exists, but the restaurant at the back, which had red and white checked tablecloths, has been replaced by an equally good Italian, Becco. The quality of the service and food is amazing. They have Wagyu Scotch fillet steak, plus a fantastic pappardelle with oxtail ragu and crispy pancetta. Or, you can just sit at the bar and have a glass of sparkling wine and amazing arancini: deep-fried risotto balls coated in breadcrumbs.

BOTANICAL
169 Domain Road (00 61 3 9820 7888; fax: 613 9820 7800; www.thebotanical.com.au). This sleek, hyper-cool brasserie, decorated in granite, stainless steel, mirror and glass, with fireplaces for winter and a terrace for summer, is the backdrop for British-born chef Paul Wilson's Mediterranean fushion food. There is an open kitchen and grill, producing dishes such as the signature kingfish carpaccio with oyster panna cotta; salad of confit ocean trout, tartare style, seaweed salt & quail egg, and Sichuan salt & pepper calamari with Chinese coleslaw & sweet gingered soy, and even a terrific breakfast (it opens at 8 am daily). Wines are excellent.

CAFÉ DI STASIO
31 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda (00 61 3 9525 3999). The best Italian restaurant in Melbourne, positioned just back from the bay. The view is great, the food sublime and the wine list far too tempting.

CAFÉ RACER
Shop 15a, Marine Parade, St Kilda (00 61 3 9534 9988). Near the bay at St Kilda. Serves excellent coffee and decent café fodder. It is easily recognised by all the Ducati motorbikes parked out the front. Closed evenings. a guy called Danny Colls, who is to coffee in Melbourne what James Brown is to funk music. He also owns Coffee Darling and the Federal Coffee Palace, and he's dedicated his life to creating small environments that promote café culture.

CAFÉ SEGOVIA
Down the lane, at 33 Block Place (00 61 3 9650 2373). Mixes good meals with very good people-watching and decent wines by the glass. Closed Sunday evenings.

CIRCA
The Prince Hotel, 2 Acland Street St Kilda (00 61 3 9536 1122; fax: 61 3 9536 1133; www.circa.com.au/intro.html; see Where to Stay). This is an amazing art deco building that was returned to glory in the mid-90s. Circa attracts a fashionable crowd with its slick, modern interiors, exciting, modern, European cooking with Asian influences, and one of Melbourne's best wine lists.

COOKIE
252 Swanston Street (00 61 3 9663 7660; fax: 613 9663 7667; http://cookie.melbourneaustralia.com.au). This stylish, central restaurant has a remarkable amount of kitsch-yet-hip decoration, while the menu includes Thai food and Belgian beers.

DONOVANS
40 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda (00 61 3 9534 8221). Also has great vistas and a smart Californian beach house feel.

GROSSI FLORENTINO
80 Bourke Street (00 61 3 9662 3655). Classic Italian.

HAIRY CANARY
212 Little Collins Street (00 61 3 9654 2471). At the other end of the fashion stakes. This is part-bar, part-café, the food has an Iberian influence, and the crowd is generally very groovy and boisterous. Impressive cocktails.

MoVIDA
1 Hosier Lane (00 61 3 9663 3038; www.movida.com.au). MoVida has a bar but the real draw is the attractive dining room decorated with a colourful collection of Spanish film posters. MoVida's menu is more comprehensive, too, with substantial main courses, tapas and a range of desserts written invitingly on a large blackboard above the open kitchen.

radii
Park Hyatt hotel (00 61 3 9224 1234; fax: 3 9224 1200; radiirestaurant.com.au; see Where to Stay). In 2004, Sydney native Anthony Musarra came to rescue this restaurant after opening chef Paul Wilson left for Botanical (see above). Designed as a thirties cruise ship, complete with little chrome-railed balconies and staircases and illuminated crackled-glass pillars, this restaurant and bar serves good Mediterranean fusion food like beef tenderloin and truffled gnocchi, mushroom ragout, smoked bacon, stilton and herb cream; and seared crisp snapper fillet, crushed potatoes, shaved fennel salad with a prawn and saffron sauce. Expensive.

RICHMOND HILL CAFE & LARDER
48-50 Bridge Road, Richmond (00 61 3 9421 2808; www.rhcl.com.au). Housed in a airy, sunny Victorian building, this café and shop was owned by Australia's answer to Delia Smith and is good for breakfast/brunch (it opens at 8.30 daily). Serves amazing fry-ups. Food is Mediterranean-inspired (pan-roasted lamb rump with aubergine, zucchini, braised shallot and tomato caponata and a salad of parsley, red onion and Pedro Ximenez sherry vinegar). The adjoining shop sells local and imported cheese in the Cheeseroom, plus, olive oils, local wine vinegars, pasta, bread and locally-made chocolates.

THE BRASSERIE BY PHILIPPE MOUCHEL
8 Whiteman St. Southbank (00 61 3 9292 7808; www.thebrasserieatcrown.com.au). This popular brasserie on the river opened in 2004 and is all about comfort food: country terrines, cassoulet, daubes abd Provençal fish soup with rouille, Gruyère and croutons.

THE FLOWER DRUM
17 Market Lane, China Town (00 61 3 9662 3655). Considered by many to be the best Chinese restaurant in the Southern Hemisphere. The service is amazing and the Peking duck pancakes are the stuff of local legend. Great for an occasion. Closed Sunday lunch.

THE STOKEHOUSE
30 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda (00 61 3 9525 5555). Right on the beach in St Kilda. For beautiful views over Port Phillip Bay and the city skyline have lunch upstairs on the balcony. Great seafood, including fresh oysters and grilled prawns. The wood-fired pizzas are also magnificent.

TAXI DINING ROOM
Level 1, Transport Hotel, Federation Square (00 61 3 9654 8808; www.transporthotel.com.au). This eclectic spot, located squarely in the middle of the futuristic Federation Square, specialises in contemporary cuisine by executive chef Michael Lambie, who has worked with Marco Pierre White in London. Designed by Peter Maddison Architects, glossy Pirelli black and orange rubber flooring provide the runway to the dining room, kitchen and tatami room. The main room overlooks St Kilda road and Southbank.

THREE, ONE, TWO
312 Drummond Street, Carlton (00 61 3 9347 3312; www.threeonetwo.com.au). This restaurant is named after the street number, and run by husband and wife team Andrew McConnell and Pascale Gomes-McNabb. From the outside, the premises look somewhat unprepossessing, but this talented couple have taken a decades-old restaurant and turned it into a personable and atmospheric place with an eclectic menu that includes Chinese, Asian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences. McConnell accentuates the restaurant's compact charm by producing a menu that offers only four choices at each course (as well as a longer tasting menu), but which could include sugar-cured venison with baby beetroot, pomegranate and juniper, john dory with seared scallops, mussels a la Grecque and samphire, and, for dessert, fig, caramelised pastry and chocolate ganache with Armagnac cream.

VUE DE MONDE
430 Little Collins Street (00 61 3 9691 3888; fax: 61 3 9600 4600; www.vuedemonde.com.au). Located in the historic 1883 Normanby Chambers building, this exemplary restaurant, voted Restaurant Of The Year by Australian Gourmet Traveller, specialises in modern French at its finest. Highlights include classically inspired Perigord truffle risotto and egg with crayfish and Oscietra caviar. The Menu Gourmand includes a vast array of dishes, with matching wines for each course organised by the sommelier.

BOND LOUNGE BAR
24 Bond Street (00 61 3 9629 9844; www.bondbar.com.au). Named after the street its in, this is a multi-roomed, chocolate and cream-coloured space with a powder room, private cigar lounge, dance floor, 'kitchen' and a cellar specialising in cognac, single malt whiskies and fine wine. Can accommodate up to 500 people.

CHAISE LOUNGE
105 Queen Street, Victoria 3000 (00 61 3 9670 6120; www.chaiselounge.com.au). Award-winning basement bar in Queen Street which serves great cocktails. The atmosphere is intimate and sumptuous: think candles, candelabras, antique chairs and couches. Lighting is low and there are beaded curtains dividing the various sections. Try the Grand Passion: a mix of Grand Marnier, gin, ruby red grapefruit juice and sugar syrup.

F4
Level 2, Hub Arcade 318 Little Collins Street(00 61 3 9650 4494; www.ffour.com.au). A hipper-than-hip Melbourne bar that takes pride in using a dynamic space to clever, aesthetically striking effect.

HAIRY CANARY
212 Little Collins Street (00 61 3 9654 2471). This is part-bar, part-café, the food has an Iberian influence, and the crowd is generally very groovy and boisterous. Impressive cocktails.

LOTUS
172 Toorak Road (00 61 3 9827 7833; www.lotusbar.com.au). A splashy design with Zen-like moments inspires a transcendent tone at this club that segues from cocktail bar to restaurant to all-out party zone.

MINK
Prince of Wales Hotel, 2b Acland Street(00 61 3 9536 1199; www.theprince.com.au). This cool cellar bar specialises in vodka - with a whopping 43 on its list it's no surprise that this appeals to a discerning drinker.

REVOLVER
229 Chapel St, Prahran (00 61 3 9521 5985; www.revolverupstairs.com.a). A cavernous New York-style warehouse space with DJs and bands, a pool parlour and pinball. It's also a Thai restaurant.

THE COLLECTION
328 Bridge Road Richmond (00 61 3 9429 8333; www.thecolllectionbar.com). This small red-walled den with a backlit bar plays funky music and has a projector beaming films onto the wall. Great fresh fruit cocktails. Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest, so get there early.

THE MELBOURNE SUPPER CLUB
1st floor, 161 Spring Street (00 61 3 9654 6300). Head here for a late-night, James Bond atmosphere. This lounge bar (with a fairly hard-to-find, virtually unmarked door) is a favourite of the hospitality set. It comes alive around midnight with what appear to be extras from a 1950s movie set, all drinking Martinis and nibbling tapas. Old wine bottles line the walls and there are leather and velvet couches, and huge paintings. A beautiful scene. Open every night until late.

THE MELBOURNE WINE ROOM
The George Hotel, 139 Cecil Street (00 61 3 9686 5655; www.tgsm.com.au). Housed in an old Victorian building with high ceilings, terrazzo floors, timber banquettes and tables. Drinks of the day are chalked up on huge mirrors - such as a Vespa (Campari, white wine and soda).

Melbourne is a city rife with contrasts, best appreciated on foot. Admire the confident architecture of the City Circle or relax in the laid-back beach scene at St Kilda.

For culture, head towards the theatres in Collins Street, Spring Street and Exhibition Street. Major cinemas can be found in Bourke and Russell Streets while at the basement of the Sofitel building is an art-house cinema showing foreign and less mainstream films.

There are several small, interesting art galleries at the top end of Flinders Lane, but for the best exhibition of early Australian art visit the National Gallery of Victoria, 180 St Kilda Road (00 61 3 9208 0220; www.ngv.vic.gov.au).

The end of 2000 saw the opening of the landmark Melbourne Museum in Carlton, which contains an Aboriginal Centre, a Children's Museum and a living Forest Gallery consisting of 8,000 plants and 120 species of small forest creatures including frogs, fish and birds.

The shopping heart is based around Bourke Street pedestrian mall. The best clothes stores can be found at the top end of Collins Street, near the Hotel Sofitel; along Chapel Street near the intersection with Toorak Road (take tram Number 8 from the city); and, for big spenders, the Casino at Greville Street (off Chapel Street) offers some of the best labels in town, if youre young and thin enough to want them.

FASHION

ALANNAH HILL
529 Chapel Street (00 61 3 9826 2755). Flirty fashions from an ex-circus girl.

BRACEWELL
Shop 5, 450 Chapel Street (00 61 3 9827 1420;
MISS LOUISE
123 Collins Street (00 61 3 9654 7730). Miss Lousie is the store for accessories in Melbourne, attracting style-seeking visitors such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Venus Williams. Labels include Pucci, Versace, Fendi and Jimmy Choo.

SCANLAN & THEODORE
566 Chapel Street (00 61 3 9824 1800; www.scanlantheodore.com.au). Sells pretty, feminine pieces, and is probably Melbourne woman's favourite label, producing hugely wearable staples such as lamb's-wool knits, well-cut trousers and beaded dresses. Its flagship store is a shrine to minimalism, decorated with flourishes such as bronze shantung curtains.

HOME AND AWAY

LEONARD HAMERSFELD AND SIMON PITHIE
Room. 17 Palmer Parade, Richmond (00 61 3 9428 3344). For slick, functional homeware, try Leonard Hamersfeld and Simon Pithie's shop. The designers' first 'product' was a metallic beanbag; they now offer everything from clear-plastic photo cubes to grey T-shirt duvet covers and portable stainless steel barbecues. Very Melbourne, very cool.

VIVACE
359 Clarendon Street (00 61 3 9690 9798). This Italian mini-department store arrranged over three floors, is owned by stylish mother and daughter team Gay and Sara Colquhoun. It stocks everything Italian for the home, especially the kitchen

AIRPORT
Tullamarine International airport.

AIRLINES FROM THE UK
British Airways (0870 850 9850; www.britishairways.com) flies direct from Heathrow to Melbourne's Tullamarine International airport. Qantas (020 8846 0466; www.qantas.com) also flies direct from Heathrow to Melbourne.

Orientation is fairly easy as all roads run on a grid pattern. Trams trundle all round the city. ‘City Circle’ trams, notable by their brown carriages, are free, and operate during daylight hours around the outskirts of the city centre. All other trams have coin-only operated ticket machines; locals are used to explaining to visitors how they work.

The cheapest option for making a number of trips in a day/week is to buy a daily/weekly ticket, available at train stations and newsagents, but curiously not on trams. These tickets will give you unlimited travel (within the sector you pay for) on all trams, buses and trains. A section-one ticket is more than enough for most travel that visitors will undertake. Two-hour tickets are available on trams, and inspectors check tickets regularly.

If driving in Melbourne, you ought to know that, in the city centre, certain roads are ‘right turn from the left lane only’. These will be marked with a sign that looks like a backwards question mark. Outside the city, cars must stop behind trams dropping off or picking up passengers, on most routes. It pays to be wary of trams: watch what the locals are doing; then follow them - only more slowly. When walking around town, it’s also worth noting that Melbourne folk tend to wait for green pedestrian lights more than elsewhere in the country, due to the zealous nature of some local constabulary, with regards to a certain jay-walking law.

The best time to visit Melbourne, like most of Australia south of the tropics, is during its autumn (March to May). Days tend to be clearer, the extremes of heat and cold are kept at bay, and the trees that line the avenues turn to amber and gold. Whatever time you travel, you are best advised to take clothes for almost any season, as the winds can whistle across Bass Straight and bring a sudden change.

There are two very good wine regions about an hour-and-a-half out of town, both worth a visit if you have the time: the Yarra Valley (very good Chardonnay and decent Pinot Noir) and Mornington Peninsula (outstanding Pinot Noir). Many companies, such as Yarra Valley Winery Tours (00 61 3 5962 3870; mobile: 0417 691105), offer personalised visits with a pick-up service from your accommodation in the city.

If you really want to impress someone, there are stretch limousines on offer too. Try Tourandine, which tailor-makes tours to suit you (00 61 3 9857 9896; mobile: 0417 334339). Really early risers may want to take a balloon flight over the Yarra Valley, culminating in a sparkling-wine breakfast and vineyard visit (try Go Wild Ballooning, 00 61 3 9890 0339; mobile: 0418 395867).

THE LOWDOWN

The local tipping custom is a small amount in cafés if you’ve eaten well and if the service has been good, and about 10 per cent in a smart restaurant when the service justifies it. If you don’t like the staff, don’t tip. In taxis, locals don’t usually tip, unless the driver has gone out of his way to be helpful, although many people will round up a fare to the nearest dollar. If you pay by credit card, 10 per cent will automatically be added to your metered fare.

Melbourne is very streetwise. Fitzroy Street, in St Kilda, is young and edgy, lined with shops and bars. Chapel Street is the city's grooviest strip and Toorak Road is the Bond Street of Melbourne.

Soak up real Melbourne at an Australian Rules football match at the new Colonial Stadium - head for the Locker Room Club Bar (00 61 3 8625 7700).

Melbourne is famous for the Royal Botanic Gardens, with their lakes, grottos and rotundas. Well worth a visit.

The Tourism Victoria information service, Melbourne Town Hall, on the corner of Little Collins and Swanston Streets (00 61 3 9653 9777; www.visitvictoria.com ), has detailed brochures on just about everything from cultural attractions to regional guides. Open 9am-5pm, daily.

Always consult the Foreign Office before travelling.