Adelaide, Australia's fifth largest city, is the vibrant capital city of South Australia.  The city was the only Australian city settled by English free settlers and is also a city of immigrants.  Adelaide, with its Mediterrean climate, has preserved its colonial past in its fine buildings.  It has wide tree-lined streets and the River Torrens running through its center.  It also has 600 pubs, incredible restaurants and sidewalk cafes, museums, great places to shop, lots of sporting activities and many parklands and gardens.  There are sandy beaches 15 minutes from the center of town, world-renowned wineries within an hour of the city, an interesting outback and the Murray River to explore.  The famous train, The Ghan, begins in Adelaide and goes to Darwin, passing through Alice Springs on its way and the Indian Pacific passes through the state on its way to Perth. 

I ran across this wonderful comparison of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in the paper recently.  This article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, March 26, 2006, written by Margo Pfeiff about Adelaide.  No one has ever described Adelaide better! Look at the photos below and you will see what she means. 

"Adelaide has always been Melbourne's and Sydney's country cousin, a city of churches and pubs, as one visitor put it.  Although it has picked up in the nightlife department in recent years , it is a quieter city of 1.2 million people, but rich in culture and quality of life.  If Sydney is brash, sunburned Los Angeles, and Melbourne is Old-World Boston, Adelaide is Charleston - a genteel, unhurried Southern lady with wrought-iron, lace-trimmed balconies. ornately tiled Victorian arcades and trams trundling down broad boulevards in a downtown surrounded by spacious parklands designed by an enlightened city planner appropriatelty  named Col. Light."

Even McDonald's is in a heritage building!

Left: Adelaide has many parks and gardens.  Right:  The National Wine Centre of Australia  highlights Australia's wine-growing regions.     

Queen Victoria Square.

Left and right:  Willy Wonka would love Adelaide!  There are two famous candy stores located here - Haighs for chocolates  (their building on the left and inside the store - middle) &  Darrel Lea's (far right) famous for licorice and chocolates.