Places to visit in Canberra

Donmel,
Canberra has more places to visit than any other Australian city and all of these places are of a very high quality!  In addition to the obvious places like parliament house, the botanic gardens and so on you will also find the National Arboretum with its forests of native and non-native trees and spectacular visitors centre with café and restaurant and marvellous views of Lake Burleigh Griffin and the city.  There is also the National Museum of Australia which provides a good introduction to Australia's development and way of life, the Australian War Memorial which rather than glorifying war describes it as it really is and honours Australia's casualties of wars.  There is the National Zoo of Australia where you can pet a cheetah and which maintains its animals in high quality enclosures. The High court building, the National Library, the Art Gallery and the Portrait Gallery are all excellent and all public places provide excellent meals and refreshments at reasonable cost.

Mount Stromlo observatory while no longer very active in telescope research due to urban light pollution is still a centre for astronomical research and provides and excellent visitors centre with café.  And panoramic views all around Canberra and the ACT.

The Snowy Mountains and rivers like the Cotter and Murrumbidgee are very close by.  There are some remarkable drives in the country around Canberra with spectacular views of river plains within valleys and amazing views that dive deep into occupied valleys.

Access to Sydney via private and public transport is always available and Sydney is only about 3.5 to 4 hours away by either method of ground transport.  Airlines offer frequent schedules to Sydney and direct to routes to all other capitals and some regional centres are also provided.  A flight to Sydney involves a flying time of only about 20 minutes.

Canberra also has a vibrant "coffee culture" and many excellent restaurants.  The city is only about 2 hours away from some very good beaches and a similar time away from the Snowy Mountains which provide both winter and summer sports and other activities.

Canberra suffers only from very brief morning and evening traffic "peaks hours" which last less than an hour and the road system is otherwise low volumes of traffic.  There is plenty of parking available, mostly free at weekends and the first 2 hours free on weekdays at shopping centres.

In the last week Canberra was announced as Australia's most liveable city and having lived here for more than 30 years I know that it thoroughly deserves this.

Have a look at my blog (http://fumblinginthedark.com) if you would like to read more about not only Canberra but the whole of Australia.  And feel free to contact me if I can bee of any assistance once you arrive here.  My wife and I would be delighted to show off our city to you.

Best wishes,

Evan.