Canberra travel guide
The capital of Australia is a place conceived by accident, built by bureaucrats and located on a compromise. Considering all that, it's a remarkably pleasant place to visit.
Sprawling across former bush and grazing land, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is dominated by Canberra, essentially a company town – though the local industry here is government. The city is also an educational, research and cultural centre, but its real focus is parliament with its attendant politicians, lobbyists and hangers-on, government ministries and foreign embassies. In spite of this considerable enterprise, Australia’s only sizeable inland city is both uncrowded and relaxed, with popular attractions such as the Australian War Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Australia.
Burley Griffin's city
Chicago-based architect and landscape designer Walter Burley Griffin, a former employee of Frank Lloyd Wright, won an international architectural competition to create the new capital from scratch in 1912. His design, which was created in association with his wife Marion Mahony, placed great emphasis on coherent connections between the landscape of the ACT and the cityscape of Canberra. This enlightened vision has led to Burley Griffin’s city being one of Australia’s most congenial environments, full of native flora, attractive landscaping and showcase architecture.
Places to visit in Canberra
See the Australian government at work at Parliament House
This building cost more than A$1 billion and is adorned with many art and craft works. It celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013. Built into the side of Capital Hill on the lakeside, its roof is grassed in order to blend in, and to allow Australians to walk over their representatives. You can view the transcript of the National Apology speech delivered in 2008 by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the Aboriginal Stolen Generation here, and when parliament is sitting, anyone can watch the action from the Public Galleries.
View military history at the Australian War Memorial Museum
The museum's collection of relics, weapons, documents and photographs is one of the best of its kind in the world. It's hard to avoid being swept up in the sombre mood of the place as you walk past walls inscribed with the names of more than 100,000 Australian war dead. Beyond the statues and murals, the memorial is the most-visited museum in Australia. Items displayed in its 20 galleries include uniforms through the years, battle maps, and plenty of hardware – from rifles to a World War II Lancaster bomber.
Get to know Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia
Showcasing artists as varied as Monet and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, along with an honour roll of Australian masters including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Albert Tucker. Displays of art from the Pacific Islands, Africa, Asia and pre-Columbian America expand the breadth of the gallery's collections, along with a regularly changing calendar of touring international exhibitions. The gallery also has a glistening sculpture garden overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.
Learn about the country's history at the National Museum of Australia
This dramatic building houses an eclectic collection of artefacts. Highlights include the world's largest collection of Aboriginal bark paintings, convict clothing and leg irons. Perhaps the oddest exhibit is the oversized heart of the racehorse Phar Lap, whose record-breaking achievements captured the country's imagination during the Great Depression until his premature death, apparently due to arsenic poisoning. Children have their own gallery, KSpace FutureWorld, at the National Museum. Here they can use touchscreen computers to design cities and vehicles, then watch their designs come to life on a 3D screen.
Discover more of Canberra
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