In Victorian times they may have been populated by horses, carts and working folk, today they’re the venue of short-cutting locals, coffee-sipping students and gawking tourists. They’re the lanes and arcades that spread like a maze right through the busiest parts of downtown Melbourne, Australia.

 Walking shoulder to shoulder on the city’s broad sidewalks, with trolleys, traffic and beeping crosswalks all demanding your attention is a sonic assault.

But just taking a turn into a lane like Degraves Street across from the hectic Flinders Street Train Station drops your stress level fifty notches. Degraves is maybe six meters wide (about twenty feet) and scaled for a couple strolling rather than a phalanx of determined people.

Small storefronts and eateries are one after another, some got our glance, some we wandered into for a glimpse, some called us to sit and snack on grilled Baramundi.


Exiting a lane like Degraves we made a jog or two to end up in a covered arcade dressed up in polished stone and brass, Melbourne’s arcades are the older better dressed sister of the lanes. There’s often a pastissere in the center with colorful stacked macaroons, sometimes a grotesque statue up on the wall and always lots of small shops serving up personal service.

We followed a printed “Melbourne Walks” brochure for our Arcades and Lanes walk that we got at the Melbourne Visitor Cemtre at Federation Square. The tour conveniently begins and ends at the square and covers about two dozen lanes and arcades.

The last stop in the the Arcades and Lanes self-guided walking tour is Young & Jackson, formerly a hotel, it’s now a boutique bar/classic pub. Waiting for us there, as she’s been for over a hundred years was the scandalous Chloe. We toasted the famous painting that shocked staid Victorian Melbourne and rested our feet.