A Rendezvous rediscovery of old Melbourne town

Sometimes the best city break is hiding in your own backyard. One historic hotel, a pair of walking shoes and 24 hours reminded us just how good Melbourne can be.

There is something slightly ridiculous about living in Melbourne and forgetting to visit Melbourne.

We cross it for work, complain about the traffic, we know which train to catch, where not to park and which shortcut will save six minutes. But every now and then it pays to approach your own city as though you’ve just arrived.

So Dee and I did.

Our base for 24 hours was the Rendezvous Hotel Melbourne on Flinders Street, a building I’d walked past countless times without having the faintest idea what was waiting behind the doors.

And what a surprise.

Built in 1913, the heritage-listed building began life as the headquarters of the Commercial Travellers Association and still carries plenty of its Edwardian grandeur.

Walk into the Grand Vestibule and eight marble columns rise through two storeys above the original-style tessellated floor. Elsewhere are dark timber, old photographs, leather chairs, chandeliers, sweeping staircases and rooms with ceilings so high you wonder how anyone changes the light globes.

Seven metres high, in fact, in the Edwardian rooms.

There are little pieces of Melbourne history everywhere. Our room mixed old-world furnishings with everything you’d expect from a modern city hotel, and opened onto a balcony overlooking the city.

You can wander the corridors and find photographs from another Melbourne. Even the rooms carry stories: the Perkins rooms are named after Anthony Perkins, who stayed here while filming On the Beach in 1959.

It feels less like wandering around a hotel and more like poking around a grand old Melbourne club where someone has finally given you a room key.

Melbourne is better on foot

The great advantage of staying here becomes apparent once you walk outside.

Flinders Street Station is a few minutes away. Cross the river and you’re at Southgate, and from there, rather than racing towards the next attraction, we simply walked.

Follow the Yarra towards Richmond and Melbourne begins revealing itself differently. The city skyline sits over your shoulder. Ducks fossick around the river’s edge. Rowing crews glide along the water while coaches pedal furiously beside them, barking instructions through megaphones and occasionally forcing pedestrians to take evasive action.

It’s beautiful.

And for a city of more than five million people, very peaceful in places.

Turn back towards Birrarung Marr and the walk into Melbourne’s sporting and entertainment precinct is even better.

Here we stumbled across something I hadn’t noticed much before. Voices and language seemed to surround us as we walked, part of wurrung dhumbunganjinu (we speak language), a sound work by Wurundjeri artist and language specialist Brooke Wandin and her family. The work shares woiwurrung language and tells the story of the Birrarung, its place names and its flow through Country. The sound installation plays daily along Birrarung Marr Walk and around Fed Square.

It changes the walk.

You’re heading towards some of Melbourne’s great modern sporting monuments, yet hearing a story belonging to this place long before stadiums arrived.

Birrarung Marr itself is worth slowing down for. Its Aboriginal art installations include shields representing the five groups of the Kulin Nation, and from here the William Barak pedestrian bridge takes you directly towards the MCG.

For anyone coming to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test, footy, the Australian Open or one of the city’s big concerts, I’d walk it rather than jump in a cab.

The approach is part of the experience.

Seven paintings. Seven courses.

Back at the Rendezvous, there is another surprise beneath your feet.

Mr Tompkins, named for the hotel’s architect Harry Tompkins, is home to 7 Paintings, a 2½-hour immersive dinner that is difficult to describe without making it sound considerably stranger than it actually is.

Seven courses. Seven artists. Projections, music, storytelling and a little audience participation.

Over the course of the evening, Michelangelo, Banksy, Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí and Vincent van Gogh become the inspiration for what arrives at the table.

At various points you’re creating as well as eating.

There are only around 40 diners, which keeps the experience intimate, and the whole thing has a playful streak that prevents it becoming overly earnest about either the food or the art.

We loved it.

It is one of those experiences where explaining every surprise would ruin half the fun. Suffice to say, don’t expect simply to sit down, eat seven courses and go home.

Breakfast where dinner became theatre

The following morning, Mr Tompkins is almost unrecognisable; the projections and theatre are gone and breakfast takes over.

That contrast rather sums up the Rendezvous. There’s a sense throughout the building that the old place keeps changing personality depending on which door you open and what time of day you walk through it.

And Melbourne does much the same thing.

From old Melbourne to showtime

You could easily build an entire weekend from the hotel’s front door without needing the car again. Laneways, tiny restaurants, bars hidden behind unremarkable doors, pubs, Chinatown and Melbourne’s theatre district are all within walking distance.

Our night eventually took us to the magnificent Princess Theatre for A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.

CHECK OUT MORE THAN THE MUSIC: THE NEIL DIAMOND STORY

For Starts at 60 readers, this one almost feels genetically engineered.

The Australian production tells Diamond’s story through the songs many of us have known for decades, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans and, inevitably, Sweet Caroline. The Melbourne season is playing at the Princess Theatre until November 7 before moving to Sydney.

And there’s a certain kind of magic about seeing a big musical in one of Melbourne’s great old theatres: the red seats, balconies and ornate interior are part of the night before the curtain even rises. Then a theatre full of people who know virtually every song gets its chance to join in.

Good luck stopping them.

The walk home

Later, we walked back through the city.

Flinders Street was wet and glowing under the streetlights and the station stretched along the opposite side of the road, restaurants were still humming and bikes and cars moved through the reflections on the bitumen.

Then we stepped back inside a building from 1913.

That was probably the moment the whole 24 hours made sense. You don’t necessarily need to fly somewhere to feel as though you’ve escaped. Sometimes you need a room in your own city, comfortable shoes and permission to wander.

Melbourne rewards that beautifully.

The history is still there and so are the grand theatres and old pubs, but beside them are Indigenous stories being heard along the river, immersive dinners beneath century-old buildings, hidden bars, restaurants and one of the world’s great sporting precincts.

And almost all of it can be reached on foot.

After 48 hours playing tourist in the city we’ve called home for years, Dee and I came away with essentially the same thought.

We really should do this more often.

Stay a little longer

For readers tempted to rediscover Melbourne for themselves, Rendezvous Hotel Melbourne currently has Commerce Rooms available from $215 per night, with the offer available to book until December 31, 2026 for stays through to September 30, 2027. Rates are subject to availability, blackout dates and offer conditions.

If you go

Stay: Rendezvous Hotel Melbourne, 328 Flinders Street, Melbourne. The hotel dates to 1913 and is opposite the Yarra, a short walk from Flinders Street Station.

Eat: Mr Tompkins is within the hotel. 7 Paintings is its immersive seven-course dinner experience.

Walk: Cross to Southgate and follow the Yarra, or head through Fed Square and Birrarung Marr towards Melbourne’s sporting precinct and the MCG.

See: A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical is playing at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre until November 7, 2026.

Best for: A Melbourne theatre weekend, Spring Racing, Boxing Day cricket, Australian Open trip or simply an excuse to rediscover the city.

Scott and Dee stayed as guests of Rendezvous Hotel Melbourne.