Melbourne laneways tours with Hidden Secrets

A Melbourne laneways tour with Hidden Secrets shows off the best bars and restaurants in the CBD laneways, while pointing out top Melbourne street art.

The Soup Place in Centre Place is far more appealing than a joint just selling soup has any right to be. A series of cauldrons line up on the counter, with lip-lickingly tempting flavours such as Middle Eastern meatballs and Greek-style chicken, rice and lemon.

But it’s not just about getting a good feed – the Soup Place has a social conscience too, and operates an admirable pay it forward system. Voluntarily pay an extra $3.50 for your soup – which is the price of covering costs – and a Post-It note is put on the wall. Anyone who is homeless can come in, take one of the Post-It notes and trade it for a free feed.

Hidden Secrets lanes and arcades tour

This isn’t the only spot to eat in Centre Place, which is particularly well stocked with sandwich shops. It is one of Melbourne’s now notorious laneways, which have come to symbolise the city’s urban energy. They are the focus of Hidden Secrets’ lanes and arcades tour, one of the best walking tours in Melbourne. Run by Fiona Sweetman since 2004, these tours concentrate on the most interesting laneways. The Melbourne laneways tours go into the back stories and details that visitors might otherwise miss.  

The walk passes along Postal Lane, and the name comes from the grand post office. The sorting office is now taken over by a H&M store, but the scale of the place is an indication of how important it was. The early Melburnians had their priorities right – the Post Office was completed way before the Town Hall, and that’s due to the discovery of gold in 1851. “Staff increased from three to 34,” says Fiona. “By 1900, it was 2,500, spurred by the numbers of immigrants wanting to send letters back home. There were also people who had done their time as convicts and had no way of getting home.”

Many of those immigrants were from China, and they tended to settle around Little Bourke Street. This has long been the hub of Melbourne’s Chinatown, but in recent years hip bars and restaurants have opened up. It’s also where we encounter a surprisingly good busker.

Busking and street art on a Melbourne laneways tour

Fiona explains that a degree of quality control is enforced. “You have to do an audition for the Lord Mayor for a busking licence,” she explains. “They bid every two weeks for positions and time slots.”

This management of things that might otherwise appear to be a free-for-all also applies to the city’s world-renowned street art scene. The tour continues to Presgrave Place, where there is plenty of paste-up and stencil work. But there are also some more intriguing additions. These include one artist who puts Degas and Renoir copies in frames, an image of the Queen on a skateboard and a disturbingly realistic rubbery eye coming out of a pipe.

“It’s quite organic,” says Fiona on her Melbourne laneways tour. “Things change and get replaced. And most of it is done during the day rather than at night.”

Street art zones in Melbourne

This is because the street art is welcomed but regulated. There’s a reason why it’s not all over the city. “There are seven streets where building owners are happy for street art to be,” says Fiona. The street art is given permission in certain zones, rather than being seen as graffiti to be eliminated.

The reasons for the reputations of other streets are also explained. Flinders Lane has several bars and restaurants that give little nods to the clothing industry that was based around there. That went into decline when a trade agreement with the UK ended in the 1970s, leaving room for said bars and restaurants to take over.

Collins Street and the Block Arcade

Collins Street, on the other hand, was home to the banks and the financial institutions. Several impressive historic buildings congregate on Collins Street, while the handsome Victorian Block Arcade branches off it.

It’s this blend of historic knowledge and modern insider savvy that makes the Hidden Secret lanes and arcades tour one of the best things to do in Melbourne. The tours last three hours and costs $99.

Other Melbourne tours include the Spirit of Melbourne dinner cruise, kayaking trips along the Yarra River and Indigenous walks in the Botanic Gardens.

Melbourne hotels with a pool include the Intercontinental Rialto, the Novotel Melbourne on Collins and the apartment-style Mantra on Russell.

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