Adelaide, la belle
I'm a little behind with our story because we've been in places where there is no internet connection. So let me step back a bit, south and east of where I am now, to Adelaide who bears her name well: just a little bit old fashioned but charming. Her streets are wide, her traffic sparse, her modern buildings largely low-rise and not very imaginative, her older buildings very definitely Victorian.
Oddly, some of these 19th century “skyscrapers” reminded me strongly of those in New York built at the same epoch. Similarly, the blocks of the central business district (CBD): framed by four streets, logically called north, east, south and west, the network of inner streets cross each other at perfect right angles forming regular blocks. In the centre is a grassy “square”, well, actually a lozenge, with the rather impressive 19th century Roman Catholic cathedral on one side (which I did not visit because it looks exactly like any biggish church in any English town) and the somewhat less impressive Hilton hotel on the other. A statue of Queen Victoria, a modern fountain which represents Adelaide's three rivers and two extremely large flags (one Australian, the other Aboriginal) flying from very tall flagpoles, decorate the centre. Unsurprisingly, this square is called “Victoria”, but also Tarntanyangga to acknowledge that this area was the central camp of the Kaurna people who are acknowledged on several plaques as “the traditional owners and custodians of the Adelaide Plains area (…), part of the Red Kangaroo Dreaming Place.”
These acknowledgements of the traditional owners of the land are now not only highly visible in all public buildings, parks and spaces throughout Australia, but a vocal recognition is also required prior to any public lecture, speech or event.
Even if there is no “wow” factor in Adelaide's architecture, there is a practicality to her network of covered or tree-lined pavements that provide pedestrians with welcome shade. This is an unusual feature in Australian cities, towns and villages that all have outlandishly wide streets which the southern sun heats to inferno levels. I can only assume that the British settlers, many of whom came from the cramped inner cities, revelled in the space available to them in this new colony and were unfamiliar with thousand year-old cities in very hot places where very narrow streets are almost constantly in the deep shade provided by three or four-storey buildings and are thus several degrees cooler than out in the sun.
We learned quite a bit about the city from the bus driver who provided an amusing and informative running commentary all the way from the airport. But when we arrived at our hotel (in the city's only neo-gothic building) we were told it was too early to check-in and that we should return at 14:00. It was a brutally hot day so we dragged ourselves off to the Botanical Gardens seeking shade. There's a very pleasant café in the centre of the Gardens where we sat for quite a while being entertained by the birds. Luckily for tourists, the botanical gardens, the university, the museum, the art gallery are all on North Street (TK) so, apart from the gardens of course, one can scurry from one air-conditioned institution to another.
So after the gardens we opted for the South Australian Museum: the only section we wanted to see was the Aboriginal people's gallery and that was very attractive, informative and entertaining. There were some really stunning Aboriginal paintings. The Art Gallery of South Australia next door is interestingly curated: each room has a theme, illustrated by works of all periods that include paintings and drawings, but also sculptures, furniture and ceramics.
Our visit happened to coincide with Adelaide's Fringe Festival so the public spaces were very animated. Musicians of unequal talent vied for attention on Rendal Street, Adelaide's main pedestrian street, and people were queuing to buy tickets for the concerts, plays and other entertainments on offer but because none were familiar to us we amused ourselves people-watching and eventually found a table and some calm in a Japanese restaurant that had opened just three days earlier.
