Oh, what a weekend

By CAMERON WILLIAMSON - The Dominion Post

Melbourne is our link to New York's Broadway and London's West End. If a trip to the northern hemisphere isn't part of the picture right now, you can get a world-class cultural experience just across the pond.

Wellingtonians like to think of Melbourne, Victoria, as our slightly senior cultural cousin. With Melburnians we share an appreciation for creative arts, culinary excellence, wine from nearby vineyards - and a casual disdain for the kind of weather that people from gentler climes find uncomfortable.

Like Wellington, Melbourne can roll out the red carpet and put on a show. And with a captive audience of four million souls in the city alone, and easy air links for the rest of Australia and New Zealand, a state government strategy to support arts tourism, and hospitality running through their veins, Victorians do it in spades.

Melbourne would like you to stay as long as you please, but among the city's most popular visitors are the long weekenders - couples or groups who come for three nights to take in a musical, some high art or special museum exhibition, stay somewhere nice and eat out in the unmatched restaurant and cafe scene.

This winter's happy coincidence combines Broadway blockbuster Jersey Boys, a seminal retrospective of surrealist Salvador Dali's art, Liquid Desire, and an intriguing exhibition of the treasures and daily life in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, buried and preserved by a volcanic eruption almost 2000 years ago.

The Pompeii exhibition we'll be able to see when it opens at Te Papa in December, but Melbourne is as close as Jersey Boys and the Dali exhibition, which closes on October 4, will come.

So with direct flights and airfares trending downwards, here's how a long weekend in Melbourne can pan out from a base at the five-star Sofitel Melbourne, where the rooms start at the 35th floor and the views across the city are like looking at a map.

Friday morning: Take one of Melbourne's charming trams or walk the few blocks north of town to Carlton Gardens, where the striking Melbourne Museum sits next to the imposing Victorian Royal Exhibition Building.

Among the permanent exhibitions of indigenous art and history is a show that tells the story of A Day in Pompeii, a collection of artefacts from the Roman city that was buried in AD79 by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. The collection of everyday objects draws a poignant portrait of life in the preserved city of 12,000 people.

The collection - which "makes the city of Pompeii look empty", according to a colleague who has visited both - is supported by a short film made by a Melbourne Museum team that allows you to experience the eruption, hour by hour, in glorious 3D.

It's a fascinating visit (adults A$20, kids A$12: NZ$25/ $15) but if you're too busy, it is coming to Te Papa, Wellington, in December.

Friday evening: Eating in Melbourne is a 24/7 treat, with most international cuisine represented in pavement cafes and bars or top- flight restaurants. In one of the world's great food cities, Mod Oz cooking melds culinary cultures, and the current generation of chefs celebrate their cultural origins.

Melbourne food leans more towards the Med than Sydney's preference for Pacific Rim. Italian kitchens line Lygon St in Carlton, the best of Spanish is covered by Movida in Hosier Lane downtown, Greek and Middle Eastern eateries pop up all over town, but there's always a steaming bowl of pho or a hot Sichuan dish in the blocks around Chinatown.

Melburnian Greg Malouf has made a triumph of Eastern Mediterranean food, reflecting his Lebanese roots, and his newly reopened Momo (momo restaurant.com.au) in the bowels of the new Grand Hyatt Hotel. The owners have spent a cool million creating a glittering mauve, diamond and white emporium of serious dining, immaculate service and exciting flavours. The prices might give you indigestion, but the food and wine list are touted as the best in town. Along with the expected tagines and fragrant couscous dishes, Malouf's signature pigeon bisteeya (little filo pies of pigeon, almonds, saffron and scrambled eggs, dusted with cinnamon) is a star.

Bars and clubs in Melbourne cater to whatever mood you're in. Spice Market, adjoining Momo in the Grand Hyatt, is like entering a plush Moroccan drinking den, with private booths, low-slung velvet cushioned snugs and sharp-dressing clientele. There's a sexy Eastern soundtrack too, and all that's missing is the opium pipes.

Saturday morning, after a big Friday night, can always look a bit surreal. But if the acknowledged master of other worlds and dreamscapes melts your clock, you'll be transported beyond your boundaries by the images in Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire.

The National Gallery of Victoria's retrospective of the legendary eccentric's work is the biggest show since his centenary in 2004 and comprises 200 works curated from two of the largest Dali collections in the world.

It's a stunning and well-told story, from Dali's precocious impressionism as a child and his first solo show at 15, through his pivotal meeting with Picasso in Paris in his 20s, to the beginnings of his adventures in surrealism, exploring the Freudian mindscape.

The obviously huge ego as the source of his energy - he was determined to be recognised as the best painter in the world - is illuminated by the chronologically organised galleries, and the themes - Dali's intercourse with film, photography, design and America; his lifelong love for Gala Eluard, and his collaborations with nuclear physicists and religious leaders - come leaping out of the walls.

It is the latest in Melbourne's Winter Masterpieces that have drawn about 1.5 million visitors to the city, almost as big a drawcard as sporting events - horse racing's Melbourne Cup, the Formula One grand prix and international tennis - that Melburnians love so much.

Saturday night: Melbourne's big drawcards for the musically minded are the spectacular shows hosted by the collection of exquisitely refurbished Rococo picture palaces and Second Empire theatres. The Princess, on Spring St, is even reputed to have a resident ghost, an actor who died in the stage trap after a performance of the opera Faust in 1888.

It's the perfect red-carpet, black- tie backdrop for Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, that opened this month.

One of the seminal boy-bands to spring from the rock'n'roll sixties, the boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop sensations of all time with songs such as December 1963 (Oh What a Night).

Valli made a few guest appearances on The Sopranos, and it's the mob-tainted backstory of hard knocks that gives the show its grunt, liberally sprinkled with expletives and wise-guy dialogue.

The pitch-perfect delivery, sharp suits and clever story prove that the Four Seasons were far more interesting than their back catalogue would indicate.

A spectacular after-party at the Sofitel left guests in no doubt that Accor hotels are dedicated to supporting musical theatre and the Winter Masterpieces in Melbourne, and travel packages that include rooms and tickets to shows and exhibitions have been designed to prove it. (sofitel melbourne.com.au).

* The writer travelled courtesy of Tourism Victoria and Qantas. Qantas is the official airline for Jersey Boys. For details on travel packages call Qantas on 0800 767 400 or contact your travel agent. More on Melbourne and Victoria at visitmelbourne.com/nz.

PHOTOS ON THE HOOF

The best travel images reflect  more than point-and-shoot. So  delving into the hidden corners  of an unfamiliar city with a local  professional photographer is a  productive way to explore.

Melburnian photographer Peter Gibney meets me in his city's Federation Square. He's my guide on a three-hour walking tour of Australia's cultural capital. "What makes it such a great place to photograph is the richness of the architecture and the hidden treasures," says Gibney, who spends the rest of his week photographing pets. He's just launched the tour in league with Sydney Photographic Tours, run by Alfonso Calero.

His tour is built around six design elements of photography - line, texture, shape, tone, form and space. After a short chat, with examples from Calero's book, each participant heads off for 10 minutes to capture images that emphasise the subject. Gibney then reviews your images, you trash the duds and keep the best.

Looking for "lines" in Melbourne's topsy-turvy Federation Square is almost too broad a brief. Lines - converging, diverging, curvy, bumpy, jagged or wavy - fill my lens. But the exercise forces me to look at the place with a photographer's eye and produce some unexpected images.

My tour moves on to Melbourne's soaring Anglican Cathedral, St Paul's, built in the 1890s with a richness of scale, colour and material that reflects the city's wealth at the time - the height of the Australasian gold rush. Hosier Lane is graffiti central in Melbourne. With a fluoro palate , and a canvas of cobblestone and brick, it's another lush feeding ground.

Capturing the shapes, tones and subjects of the inner city fills an enlightening couple more hours, even on a dull day. But the best is last - a visit to the Victorian State Library's remarkable octagonal reading room, lit from five storeys above by a skylight dome and surrounded by hushed galleries of precious books.

* melbournephotographytours.com