INTRODUCTION: Sydney to Melbourne in Economy, an exhibition, a play and a Le Méridian stay, April, 2023

• INTRODUCTION: Sydney to Melbourne in Economy, an exhibition, a play and a Le Méridian stay, April, 2023
• FLIGHT REVIEW: Sydney to Melbourne in Qantas Economy – call that a meal?
• HOTEL REVIEW: New Le Méridien, Melbourne. Where I used to dance my sox off!
• FLIGHT REVIEW: Tow bar pin breaks on Melbourne to Sydney Qantas Economy. But this time I get a meal!

Melbourne is one of my favourite cities in Australia. In a previous life running a design company, I used to travel between Sydney and Melbourne fairly often to service clients. I would often schedule meetings towards the end of the week, so I and my husband could spend the weekend down there, take in some theatre, an exhibition, and eat at one of many fine Melbourne restaurants.

I don’t have clients in Melbourne any more, so now, I need to make a more deliberate effort to visit Melbourne and sample its delights. For this trip, the aim was to nip down to Melbourne on an early evening flight, take in the final weekend of the Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, have lunch at the gallery, and in the evening, a meal at Spice Temple before we headed off to watch the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Bernhardt/Hamlet with Kate Mulvany. Finishing the weekend off with lunch at ARU and then a late afternoon flight back to Sydney. Weekend had. Job done.

Injury, rain and Melbourne Taxi’s

That was the plan, and despite a miss-start with a cancelled flight, it went pretty much as planned, except I aggravated a recent hamstring injury as I got out of the plane in Melbourne, which meant that my walking capacity was limited.

Oh yes, and it basically rained the entire time we were in Melbourne. I also discovered that there are a representative minority of Melbourne taxi drivers who are assholes. Multiple times, they locked us into cabs in case we scarpered without paying, demanded off meter charges to take us places, left us in the rain, refused a hail after stopping, and one cab was going to drop us 100 metres before our destination in the rain, with our luggage.

Not happy, Jan.

2PAXfly Takeout

Taxi drivers aside, this turned out to be a great weekend. The exhibition was wonderful, although not as good as the one that toured from New York to the V&A in London – Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty back in 2018. The NGV Garden Restaurant served a more than decent lunch, and Bernhardt/Hamlet, although not a total success, was entertaining. Our stay at Le Méridien was great, despite them having been open less than a month. The meal triumphs were probably dinner at Spice Temple, and even better, the lunch at ARU.

Lessons learnt were to be careful how you get out of the window seat on a plane when you have a hamstring injury. And when an airline encourages you to take an earlier flight – it’s best to take it when it’s offered. You will have more seat choices, or at least with Qantas, you will. And, Melbourne taxi drivers are assholes.