Experience the best of St Kilda

St Kilda lies on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay, a few kilometres south of the centre of Melbourne, and has been the city's seaside playground since the nineteenth century. The Esplanade runs along the beach, lined with palms and old hotels, and the pier, rebuilt after a fire, extends out past its kiosk to a breakwater.

Luna Park, which opened in 1912, still has its wooden Scenic Railway and a huge laughing face at the entrance. Little penguins nest in the rocks of the St Kilda breakwater and can be seen at dusk. The Palais Theatre, a picture palace from 1927, still hosts concerts, and the St Kilda Botanical Gardens are a quiet green corner behind the beachfront.

Acland Street is known for its cake shops, which grew out of the area's Central and Eastern European communities and still sell poppy-seed cake, strudel and cheesecake. Trams run from the city. On summer weekends the sand is busy, and in cooler months the pier and the bay path fill with walkers.