Culture in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 23 Mar 2010 23:49
35:17.958S 149:07.424E
On February 14, we left the high country and the
state of Victoria behind and drove to Canberra, the capital of Australia.
It was a long drive, but we somehow still found time for a winery stop
as well as gourmet cheese shop stop. We've found it's important
to maintain a good balance of food/wine/scenery while traveling,
so we are doing our best to achieve that perfect
equilibrium.
Canberra, a city of only 324,000 people, is about
as low key as a capital city can be - on the surface anyway. The streets
are set up in a circle and spoke pattern with about 30,000 roundabouts
connecting them at various points. It was good that traffic didn't
appear to be a problem here because navigation through the curlicues was
hard enough. We didn't see any tall buildings. Instead we saw large
expanses of green lawn (there's been an inordinate amount of rain in this area
this year), and a downtown that looked more like suburbia than a capital
city. We arrived on a Sunday, so we initially thought the sedate nature of
the place was simply a weekend phenomenon. During our drive around the
city on Monday morning though, there didn't seem to be an increase in
the number of circling cars. There must be an undercurrent of
frenzied activity bubbling just under the surface though because we see TV
and newspaper reports about the vast amounts of mudslinging that
goes on between the ruling party and the opposition on a daily
basis in Parliament House. It seems the
mudslinging literally does take place under the surface since the new
Parliament House (constructed in 1988) was built into a hillside and is covered
by grass.
We stayed one night in Canberra at the luxurious
Hyatt hotel. This time it was a handicapped room with floor to ceiling
marble in the bathroom - including the shower stall with the all-important bench
seat. The next morning we went to the National Gallery of Australia to see
the "Masterpieces from Paris" exhibition. Six rooms full of impressionism
and post-impressionism masterpieces by Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Gauguin,
Cezanne and others on loan from a museum in Paris. It was very cool to see
in person what we had only ever seen in prints or photos. Even better was
touring the jam-packed exhibition with someone in a wheelchair. It was
like traveling behind Moses - the crowds parted with no
complaint while Don wheeled through them to all the best viewing positions
with me in tow. This wheelchair thing is highly recommended as a mode of
travel in crowds.
Sorry, no pictures. The exhibition didn't
allow photos for obvious reasons and Parliament House is underground, so what's
to see? (Ok, that's a bit unfair....the Parliament house interior is said
to be something to see, but we had places to go and people to see, so
we circled out of Canberra as directly as possible from the National
Gallery.)
Anne
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