Windsor Accommodation, Hotels, Tours & Information

Windsor

Just a few minutes from the centre of Melbourne, the small suburb of Windsor is at the heart of the city action. Its dominant thoroughfare, Chapel Street, is one of Melbourne's great shopping beats, jam-packed at the South Yarra end with fashion boutiques, antique shops and jewellery salons.

Continue on towards the Malvern Road stretch of the street and you're in the famous Jam Factory where the price tags are more likely to trigger indigestion rather than a heart attack.

Closer still to Malvern and the spotlight moves from high fashion to gourmet food. In Windsor you are also in the hub of Albert Park, the King's Domain with its signature Myer Music Bowl and within strolling range of Government House and the Shrine of Remembrance.

Behind the Royal Botanic Gardens, Government House is set in 4.5ha of magnificent grounds and has been the ceremonial centre of government in Victoria since the 1870s. Designed in the Italianate style, the imposing home includes a 42 metre state ballroom which, in its glory days, was reputed to be the largest in the British Empire - a slice of trivia, it is said, which did not amuse Queen Victoria. Indeed, one of its residents, Governor Henry Loch, complained that "you had to ask more than 1500 people to a function or the room felt empty".