Melbourne - Day One

Today we flew from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city arriving in time for lunch. One thing I can definitely say about this Road Scholar adventure is that we have been fed well and often. I've had to cut way back on how much I've been eating or be ready to diet when I return home.

After lunch we went to the Eureka Skydeck 88 for a 360 degree panoramic view of the city. From our vantage point 88 floors up, we could see the sprawl of the city, the harbor and some of its skyscrapers. One of the sites we could see was the Rod Laver Arena where the Australian Open is contested each year. That was a highlight for me. Unfortunately, visiting the arena is not on our itinerary.

Our next stop was the Shrine of Remembrance, a shrine to those who died in WWI and other wars. The Shrine is constructed so that at the 11th hour on the 11th  day of the 11th month, a ray of sun shines on the word "love" in a memorial containing the phrase "Greater love hath no man". For

tourist consumption, artificial light is used to simulate the real event with a voice recording recognizing the sacrifice. It was quite moving.