Having returned the houseboat, we bid farewell to our friends - Garry was off home to Canberra, Sue off home to Perth, Jenny off to Melbourne to visit her son and his family, and Grant and Ian off to Adelaide. We were also going to Adelaide but our car was too small to accommodate 4 people plus luggage, so the others were taking Grant and Ian to Adelaide en route to the airport.

We decided to visit Hahndorf which is a lovely village in the Adelaide hills. It was originally settled (by Europeans) in 1839 by Lutheran migrants who were escaping persecution in Prussia. The king decided to merge the Lutheran and Reformed churches and persecuted anyone who resisted. The settlers arrived aboard the Zebra whose Dutch captain was Dirk Hahn. Hahn helped the settlers by negotiating for the award of land on which they could settle. As a result, the town was named after him and there is a memorial to honour him. Hahndorf is Australia's oldest German settlement. It's a lovely town with a tree-lined main street, lots of heritage buildings, attractive shops, and a very strong German flavour. We walked up and down the main street which has many relics from the town's past, together with some modern street art, and visited its combined museum and art gallery. The latter was interesting with its history of Hahndorf and its collection of artifacts from the early settlers and works by local artists, including Hans Heysen who was born in Hahndorf. We enjoyed Hahndorf - except that it was cold!

 
 
We arrived in Adelaide about 2pm, checked into our apartment hotel and spent the rest of the day and evening shopping for food, catching up on laundry and relaxing. We're staying in the Adina Apartment hotel in the heritage-listed former Treasury building. It claims to be one of the oldest and historically significant buildings in South Australia, having been designed in 1836, its foundation stone laid in 1839 and its courtyard garden established in 1840. (Apparently, the early settlers slept in the courtyard as they queued for land grants.) However, due to an increase in population during the 1850s Gold Rush, the building was demolished and rebuilt over 70 years - does that still make it one of the oldest? Whatever, it's been beautifully restored and updated such that the old features are retained whilst the accommodation rooms are very modern.  
 
The next day, we visited Glenelg which is Adelaide's beachside suburb on Holdfast Bay. We went by tram which took about 30 minutes and gave us the chance to see some of Adelaide's suburbs - which were unremarkable, really. Glenelg was established in 1836 and is the oldest settlement in mainland South AustralIa! (Funny how everyone manages to lay claim to being the oldest European "something"!!!!) The province of South Australia was proclaimed in Glenelg in 1836 and there is a lovely monument to record the event. We liked Glenelg and thought its waterfront was very pleasant. There are lots of restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels and shops but, unlike some seaside places, it's been done very tastefully. We walked along the pier, around the marinas and parklands. The weather was mild and sunny, so we had a very pleasant afternoon.  

 

We decided to devote the next day to Adelaide's cultural highlights so walked to North Terrace which has some beautiful old buildings. We stopped at the impressive War Memorial before visting the Art Gallery. Adelaide's collection (as displayed) is relatively small so we managed to visit all the galleries. Apart from some lesser known works by some of Australia's artists, we thought the collection was rather ordinary. A number of the works had historical significance, in that they recorded events in the early days of European settlement, but they didn't strike us as being good art. We visited the special exhibition, " Versus Rodin: bodies across space and time", which displayed some of Rodin's works alongside works by 65 modern and contemporary artists who also explored the human body. The idea was to display the similarities, or otherwise, between the various artists. We enjoyed the Rodin works although most were small and so not as impressive as the pieces in the Rodin Museum in Paris (we've been spoilt!!) As for the other artworks - well, we were underwhelmed! Even the 3 pieces by Antony Gormley (whose work we like) were disappointing - they didn't look like figures at all!  

 
 
From the Art Gallery, we walked around the beautiful buildings of the University of Adelaide and then visited the Museum. We looked at its collection of fauna from various regions in the world (quite interesting) and its collection of Pacific Islands' artifacts but skipped its special exhibition on Aboriginal music. The building was attractive (as was the Art Gallery) but the collections didn't appeal to us greatly so we didn't stay long. 

   
 
We met up with Grant and Ian that evening and had an excellent meal at a seafood restaurant called Louca's.  
 
For our last full day in Adelaide, we went to the Botanic Gardens which are very pleasant and attractive. They are very like similar gardens in the UK, with formal landscaping, a palm house and gravel paths - but unusual for Australia. We then walked along North Terrace as far as the casino and underground railway station. On the way, we saw the buildings we'd seen yesterday plus Government House and the Parliament. We planned to visit Port Adelaide and decided to go by train. We went to the ticket office where a very helpful clerk explained the ticketing arrangements and told us which train to get. Once on the train, we realised we weren't sure which station we needed. The one called Port Adelaide looked quite isolated so we stayed put and ended up at the end of the line, Outer Harbour, where the cruise ships dock. That didn't look too interesting so we abandoned the idea and went back to Adelaide! We spent 1hr 20mins travelling through some very ordinary suburbs - not our best idea for an afternoon out!!

Adelaide has done well in retaining its lovely old buildings. It's a small city, built on a grid surrounded by parkland. So, it's very easy to walk around and very attractive and vibrant with lots of shops, restaurants and bars. A very pleasant place to stay for a few days.