More than your average shopping or city sights tour, exploring Melbourne’s lanes is a mission to find excellence. Bev Malzard discovered Victoria’s secret!

The eclectic atmosphere of one of Melbourne's lanes.

A glance at a map and it’s obvious that Melbourne began as a precisely planned city. A tidy grid of angled streets, Melbourne is one of the few major cities in Australia that has retained many of its original lanes and alleyways. The march of progress hasn’t left them derelict, nor ignored their contribution to the personality of the city.

Beneath the facade that everything is in its place in Melbourne, there’s a restless underbelly of creative energy pushing at the city’s conservative seams – and this energy is palpable in and around the arcades and city lanes that are full of surprises. Each enclave is distinct, with its own flavour and charm.

On foot is the best way to mooch through Melbourne, and the Hidden Secrets Tours are three-hour walks of discovery that celebrate the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of Melbourne.

Walk through the city’s beautiful arcades and quirky lanes, and discover what secrets they have up their sleeves.

On the Lanes and Arcades tour you’ll uncover local designers, specialty retailers, vintage clothes stores, traditional chocolate shops, cafes from now and coffee shops from an age gone by.

The advice given at the beginning of the tour is to ‘look up’, and following the advice gives you a splendid view through narrow laneways of buildings and facades of city blocks that otherwise you may not ever see. The architecture and the story behind the buildings are part of the guide’s knowledge, given generously.

The timeless trio visited on the tour are the Cathedral Arcade, with Genki and Alice Euphemia, both stocking an array of eclectic designs; the Block Arcade with its historic, elegant Hopetoun Tearooms; and Royal Arcade, the oldest retail arcade in Australia.

The tour is not all about shopping though; there’s history to be learned, anecdotes to laugh at and new friends to meet.

When Get Up & Go joined the tour group there were two lots of friends (women) who had met up in Melbourne for a night at the theatre, a good restaurant meal, a spot of shopping and to do the lanes tour.

A few single women came along; but the medal of the day went to our one male who enjoyed the tour, window shopping, and the Koko Black chocolate stop for morning tea and a gourmet lunch afterwards. He didn’t falter at any aspect of the trip and, for a big, burley farmer from Dubbo NSW, he was voted a legend by all the women on the tour.

So, gentlemen, the way to a woman’s heart could be a three-hour walk through the lanes and arcades of Melbourne with your nearest and dearest.