Sure, Melbourne has one big, sprawling museum (called, not surprisingly, the Melbourne Museum), but it’s also a city with lots of small, idiosyncratic specialist museums.
The National Sports Museum is situated within the shrine known locally as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where “worshippers come to pray to the gods of Australian football and cricket,” reports Traveller.
The champion horse in action prior to his fateful journey to the US.
Heide Museum has become “one of Australia’s most important contemporary art institutions,” says Broadsheet. “Before it was a museum, before it was a sculpture park, before it was a collection of gardens, Heide was a family home.”
The Hellenic Museum is located in the Royal Mint Building, which symbolises the old and traditional Australia. Its focus is on providing Greek Australians – and the larger community – “an understanding and appreciation of modern and ancient Greek cultural traditions,” says The Modern Con, showcasing many rare and priceless Greek artefacts including manuscripts, Greek weaponry, statues and other impressive and unique items.
The Immigration Museum charts the history of multicultural Melbourne, which is home to people from 180 countries who speak over 230 languages, “through the stories of these people from across the world,” writes AFAR. “Not only does it highlight the many successes—with recollections of the often-arduous journeys and moving tales about life on arrival—but it also covers darker topics such as the displacement of indigenous people and the controversial White Australia policy.”
Phar Lap Museum pays tribute to “an unlikely hero in the form of a horse” who captured the national spirit when Australia was in the midst of the Great Depression, explains Atlas Obscura. Phar Lap, a New Zealand-born horse, “started as an awkward, unpromising colt, and then went on to unrivalled success on the early 20th-century racetracks.” And here’s Phar Lap in action.