Lest We Forget

Finally, I've got round to sharing more pictures from Melbourne! The Shrine of Remembrance is the most amazing things I've seen in Australia and probably the biggest memorial I've ever visited. The shrine itself is a memorial to the First World War and the big square in front of it, as well as the Eternal Flame, is a memorial to World War Two. 

I went to see it on the most beautiful Melbourne day, not a cloud in sight. You actually enter the shrine via a weirdly shaped forecourt, of which I took a picture from above, and wen you get inside, the first thing you see is the never ending wall of medals! Well apparently there are 4000 of them, each representing 100 Victorian soldiers who served Australia in World War I and 6 who died. That's a lotta soldiers & Victoria is a pretty tiny state compared to the others in Australia. I actually could've stood in front of them for ages just looking at the different designs of them. There is also a museum in the bottom of the shrine, which tells you a little bit more about Australia during the wars and there's a video, too. As you start climbing the stairs to the top of the shrine, you get to a room that has lots of flags and displays the Father & Son figurines, which 'honour the courage and sacrifice which link two generations of Victorian service men and women who served and died in the World Wars'. There's a lot of Union Jacks around, which just shows how strong the alliance between Australia & the United Kingdom was and still is. On the next level, you finally get to the actual World War One memorial, which is a square hole in the ground with a stone inside it that reads 'Greater Love Hath No Man' and the sunlight from the hole in the top of the shrine shines onto it. 

The best bit about the shrine, though, is the free view!! The tallest building in Melbourne, the Eureka Tower, has a viewing platform on its 88th level but charges people a ridiculous amount of money to go up it and I got amazing views and some pictures of the whole city from the top of the Shrine of Remembrance, which were just as great and I didn't pay any money! I think I'm pretty lucky with the weather I had on the day, it was so beautiful! Check out my snaps (& the hilarious guy looking at the Father & Son)!