Last week we headed to one of my most anticipated locations in Melbourne; Fitzroy. Melbourne’s oldest suburb has the ‘cool’ factor. It’s where the hipsters come to drink their flat whites and eat brunch. This is my kind of place.
History
Fitzroy, as a suburb of Melbourne, dates back to 1839 but was officially separated from the city in 1858. There were factories aplenty surrounding Fitzroy and the area quickly became filled with working class families. It had a slum reputation until the 1960’s when regeneration commenced.To get there, we headed on foot through Fitzroy Gardens where the city high rises suddenly give way to expansive open space. It feels like you can breathe again. The gardens were also home to quite exotic birds. The best being the Rainbow Lorikeet which you should be able to see in one of the pictures below. There were about five all singing to each other. I’m not a bird geek by the way, I had to do a bit of research to find out which bird we actually saw.[easy-image-collage id=474]Walking down Brunswick Street towards the centre of Fitzroy, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with the ‘Wild West’. The houses are certainly very different to what we are used to in England but at least they have some character about them.There’s some pretty cool street art and a lot of high quality coffee shops. We wanted to try coffee from Industry Beans but we had no Wi-Fi and couldn’t quite find it. [easy-image-collage id=504]As we walked round, we saw so many places that we wanted to try. I have a love for retro campers and stumbling upon an old airstream food truck felt like heaven. We headed to Naked for Satan instead but we’ll definitely be returning as soon as possible.
Naked for Satan is a Vodka and Pintxos (tapas) bar set over a few different levels with an incredible rooftop terrace. There are no words to describe the view over the city skyline. It was packed on a Saturday afternoon. It would be the perfect place to watch the sunset.Luckily, Naked for Satan was celebrating its birthday and so, throughout October, the self-serve pintxos were all 50c.[easy-image-collage id=436]This was only a brief trip to introduce ourselves to Fitzroy and it left me wanting more. I’ll be back before you know it.ps during the writing of this post, I discovered a spider had been making webs from my hat to my back. I’m not sure whether it was poisonous but I don’t think I’ve moved quicker. Well, maybe the other day when I found a huge moth in my shorts.