Rundle Street Mall & Environs

Adelaide is an interesting place. In some ways, just like the other cities we visited here in Australia, but in other ways quite different. While we've seen drive through bottle shops everywhere, this is the place that had one on the street for pedestrians.

About a block from our hotel is the Rundle Street Mall. This is the first street closed to vehicular traffic in Australia. Like the Bourke Street Mall (without the trams), is the place to find the large department stores: Myers, David Jones, Target, Kmart. Don't laugh at Kmart. It had windowed elevators running up and down the outside of the multistoried building.

Extending into the buildings on either side were also arcades and shopping malls of various sorts. This one had a bit of art in front of it.

This water fountain made a nice addition to to the streetscape.

The city center is surrounded by parks all the way around. Interesting way to limit growth, eh? Rundle Street is near the northern edge of the inner city and in the edge of the park on this side are memorials and museums. The war memorial is quite impressive.

Down the street about half a block is the State Library. In front of it is a status of Robert Burns. The stone work in the building is beautiful.

Inside the old section of the library is an impressive display of space and books.

There was also a photography exhibit on display showing journalism from around Australia and the world. Some of this was quite disturbing.

But back outside, there are clouds and palm trees to liven things up.

In the State Art Museum, in addition to the usual western art things (like that technical terminology there?) are things from the islands off the north coast of Australia. I thought this sailing craft (would you really call this a boat) was interesting and more than a little scary to imagine riding the open seas in (on).

In the more conventional section, we find a large statue of Eros.

There was nothing here to say that you had to visit this on your trip to Adelaide, but it is nice.