Melbourne
— — the city that wears four seasons in an afternoon.
Not only on a wall.
“Melbourne sits at the top of Port Phillip Bay, a low city of cast-iron verandahs, bluestone laneways, and the largest tram network in the world. The weather changes its mind by lunchtime. Coffee is taken seriously here, often standing at a counter the width of a doorway, in a lane the sun barely finds. Street art on the brick, a flat white in the hand, the rattle of a green-and-gold W-class going past.
Melbourne, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Melbourne is the capital of Victoria and the second-largest city in Australia, with a metropolitan population near 5 million. It sits at the head of Port Phillip Bay, where the Yarra River drains into the bay before the bay opens to the Bass Strait. The central grid was laid out in 1837 by surveyor Robert Hoddle; the narrow service lanes between his wide streets are now the city's signature. The tram network, around 250 kilometres of track, is the largest urban tramway in the world.
Melbourne's weather is a local joke and a real thing. A cool front off the Southern Ocean can drop the temperature ten degrees Celsius in a single afternoon. Locals call it four seasons in one day, a line lifted from a Crowded House song that the city has more or less adopted. Summers average about 26 degrees, winters around 14, but the daily swing matters more than the mean. People dress in layers and keep an umbrella in the bag regardless of what the morning looks like.
The walking city is small. Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, and the Yarra promenade sit within a few minutes of each other; Hosier Lane, Degraves Street, and the laneway coffee bars are a short detour from each. The Royal Botanic Gardens cover 38 hectares on the river's south bank. Trams inside the central Free Tram Zone cost nothing to ride, including the heritage City Circle loop. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, half an hour's walk east, holds 100,024 and fills for AFL Grand Final day in late September.