Podtours for Melbourne

Radio station 774 ABC Melbourne has joined forces with the University of Melbourne’s Department of History and ABC New Media and Digital Services to launch PodTours, which double as both an audio guide and a guided walking tour.

History students from the University of Melbourne have thoroughly researched the tours, ensuring scores of facts and anecdotes about the city.

There are three tours, and they can be downloaded free of charge at the ABC website.

Highlights of Eat, Drink Melbourne include the story of Australian food icons, such as Vegemite, the Freddo Frog, and the Dim Sim, which were all invented in Melbourne; the site where the Prince Alfred caused Melbourne’s biggest food-fight involving around 100,000 Melburnians; and great tales about Melbourne's famous pubs and vineyards.

Under every glistening, stylish sophisticated city (and Melbourne's certainly one of those) there lies a long tale of grime and crime – and Death, Dirt & Disease and Showbiz helps visitors explore the macabre side of Melbourne. There are dead bodies being pulled out of the Yarra River, coroners counting maggots and nightmen dumping bedpans on flowerbeds.

Sexy Spectacles and Sideshows is full of interesting trivia, such as Houdini’s chained and padlocked dive into the Yarra; the place where Kung Fu actor Jackie Chan threw a bad guy through a shop window; the lanes that served as purgatory for Nicholas Cage in Ghost Rider , and the story behind the 1920s race to build the first and most exotic picture palace.

All PodTours begin at the Federation Square Tourist Information Centre and take approximately one hour to complete.


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