St. Paul's cathedral MELBOURNE MEMORY #2 (LANES AND ALLEYWAYS: ART CULTURE) - Tram Rides - Queen Victoria's Market - Eureka Sky Deck 88 - Captain cook's cottage - Flinder's street station - Yarra River - MCG - Federation Square - Cuisine - Extras.


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While walking your way in Melbourne, don’t be surprised if you find yourself standing in a whole little lane tucked away in the busy sprawling metropolis awash in a big palette of vibrant colors and artistic pieces. Melbourne is one city that wears its cultural spirit on its sleeve for all to see! Using the vocabulary of colorful paints and pictures, Melbournians showcase all that is sacred and profane in their life, their expressions and emotions, their dreams and aspirations. All this and more in Melbourne’s much celebrated lanes and alleyways – a must watch cultural attraction for any visitor travelling to this part of the world today.

These lanes and alleyways invite you to enter and lose yourself and flow into their being by happily doubling up as open canvases for artists to paint their heart out and for others to savor all of it absolutely free of cost. Enter them and you realize just what happens when imagination runs free and colors explode in celebration! You realize just how beautifully art can complement the vibrant urban facets of a city’s personality, how creativity can thoughtfully find a way in the city’s chaos.

No wonder, this visual street art of Melbourne features as a distinctive Melbournian way of life in the eye of the world. Below is a picture walk through one such alleyway I bumped into while wandering around Bourke street mall, one of Melbourne's pretentious neighborhoods.


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Time for a story...
Come along...


An open gallery calls...
Amazing Melbourne Street art in the lanes and alleyways of Australia
The witch is thirsty...
... She is scared!
Graffiti art in the lanes and alleyways of Melbourne, Australia
Is there an escape route?
Graffiti Street art in Melbourne Victoria, Australia
To a different city, may be?
Melbourne graffiti street art in the lanes and alleyways of Australia
Not a city but a haven... giving birth to the real her... the real self,
Graffiti culture in the lanes and alleyways of Melbourne, Australia
Where her soul counts its blessings,
Graffiti in the lanes of Melbourne, Australia
And, joys laugh in her heart!
Melbourne Street culture art in the lanes and alleyways of Australia
A place thus, shall be her very own country...
Street art in the lanes and alleyways of Melbourne, Australia
Where she is completely free -
Interesting Melbourne Street art in the lanes and alleyways of Australia
... Free to color her own destiny,

... Write her own life story ...

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This is just one but there are many more. So many stories and colors galore. Colors that are evocative, eccentric, half finished and inspiring, all at the same time. And speaking through the hearts of its people … in a language that is deep, perhaps even unfathomable and possessing such a strange pulsating vibrancy… that it lingers in a traveler’s mind ... in my mind’s eye... for long....

Art is never finished only abandoned ~ Leonardo Da Vinci.

Addresses of Melbourne Art lanes and alleyways?

Google it and it shall throw you a host of names like Union lane, Hosier and Rutledge Lane, Degraves street, etc. on the Melbourne map where you can discover these hidden artistic gems but my personal experience says that these lanes and alleyways have no fixed addresses and the best way to discover them is by chance. I myself had asked a lot of people for their whereabouts but found no success until on the second last day of my trip when I bumped into this alleyway - by ‘chance’ while strolling around the Bourke street mall area. So just grab a map and get out there. Explore. All you need is a bit of curiosity and a bit of trust for chance to do the rest!

Previous stories from Melbourne: