A few things to do in Melbourne

Sunday morning early my daughter-in-law and I zipped into Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne city to check out the vintage clothes stalls. We both ended up with goodies to come home with. I love to walk into the food hall at the markets, I could get lost there for the morning. There cheese shops, bread shops, meat shops, fruit shops, and variations of all those. The goods are amazing and well presented. You get to taste test and the shop owners are generally passionate foodies. I particularly liked the coffee we got from the little Italian coffee van. The Italian food looked amazing though I couldn't eat the beautiful pastries (rats!), my hands were full and I didn't grab a photo or the name of the van but it was a stand out because it looked clean, fresh, and the offerings were different.

After lunch we wandered down to the Morondah Community Fair and enjoyed watching the smallest boy's delight at driving a fire engine, jumping on the jumpy castles and dancing with the Tickety Toc crew on main stage (yes I was the only adult in the front row but I was SUPPORTING my grandson!!).  There were an amazing amount of free activities so we had a very happy boy that afternoon.

 We headed out for a coffee the next morning and went straight to Bekendales.  This is a cafe we love to head to when we are in Croyden.  Dale is a real character; welcoming and warm, loves his food and coffee, and he serves the normal breakfast fare with nice treats in the cabinet. The cafe is small and cosy on a cold day, air-conditioned on a hot one, and there are outdoor seats for when the weather is lovely....

Monday saw us alone with Mr I-Must-Have-2-Marshmellows (3.5years old). We went up Mt Dandenong which is another favourite thing to do. Main destination was Sassafras for breakfast and as much shopping as the 3.5 yr old would allow (not much apart from in Geppettos Workshop).  The  Cafe de Beaumarchais beckoned us in on this cool morning.  I had held off having breakfast and thought I would get something healthy to eat. NOT! One look at the offerings and I just had to have something so NOT good.  I settled on a white chocolate, raspberry, lemon curd cheesecake.  It was decadent to say the least. but I washed it down with a short macchiato which cut through the sweetness. Of course someone lactose intolerant should take a little more care over their choice of breakfast, the consequence was that I suffered a little but it was a lovely thing to eat at the time. Husband ate a fritatta and Grandson had banana bread which went down a treat and was enjoyed all morning as the left overs were wrapped, taken with us and munched in the car. This cafe is a little bit of Paris, the pastries are beautiful to look at in an old glass fronted case, the furniture has a distinctly French look and the atmosphere is dark and moody which reminds me of that night we had in Paris.....