Hobart

Hobart: Tasmania's Cultured Capital Between Mountain and Sea

Hobart is Australia's second-oldest city and arguably its most beautiful — a compact harbour capital of a quarter million people nestled between the brooding bulk of kunanyi/Mount Wellington and the broad estuary of the River Derwent, with a convict-era waterfront that has been reinvented as one of the Southern Hemisphere's most vibrant cultural and culinary destinations. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony, Hobart retains an extraordinary collection of Georgian and Victorian sandstone architecture — more per capita than any other Australian city — giving it a solidity and sense of history that its younger mainland counterparts lack. But it is the arrival of MONA — the Museum of Old and New Art — in 2011 that transformed Hobart from a sleepy state capital into a destination of international cultural significance.

The character of Hobart is defined by its relationship with the natural world and its embrace of creative eccentricity. MONA, built into the sandstone cliffs of the Berriedale peninsula and accessible by high-speed catamaran from the waterfront, is a subterranean museum of confrontational, provocative, and frequently brilliant art that its founder, David Walsh, describes as "a subversive adult Disneyland." The permanent collection — Egyptian mummies alongside contemporary installation art, ancient coins beside kinetic sculptures — challenges every expectation of what a museum can be. The Salamanca Place waterfront precinct, housed in a row of Georgian sandstone warehouses, hosts the legendary Saturday morning Salamanca Market — a sprawling affair of artisan food, local produce, and Tasmanian crafts that is the social heart of the city.

Tasmania's culinary reputation has exploded in recent years, and Hobart is its capital. The island's cool climate, clean water, and rich soils produce ingredients of exceptional quality: Pacific oysters from the Tasman Peninsula, Atlantic salmon from the Huon Valley, Bruny Island cheese, leatherwood honey from the island's ancient rainforests, and cool-climate wines — particularly Pinot Noir and sparkling — that are increasingly recognised as world-class. Franklin Wharf restaurants serve the harbour's catch within hours of landing. Templo, in Salamanca, offers degustation menus that showcase Tasmanian provenance. And the fish punts moored along the waterfront sell fish and chips of the sort that become the yardstick by which all subsequent fish and chips are judged.

kunanyi/Mount Wellington, rising 1,271 metres directly behind the city, provides one of the most dramatic urban backdrops in the world. The summit road ascends through temperate rainforest, subalpine scrubland, and finally dolerite boulder fields to a summit panorama encompassing the city, the Derwent estuary, Bruny Island, and on clear days, the distant peaks of the Southwest Wilderness — one of the last great temperate wildernesses on earth. The Cascades Female Factory, a UNESCO-listed former convict prison for women, provides a sobering and essential counterpoint to the city's modern vibrancy, telling the stories of the thousands of women transported to Van Diemen's Land.

Azamara, Carnival Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, and Silversea all call at Hobart, making it one of the most frequently visited cruise ports in Australia. The cruise terminal at Macquarie Wharf sits directly on the waterfront, within walking distance of Salamanca Place and the city centre. For travellers who know Sydney and Melbourne but have yet to discover Tasmania, Hobart offers Australia at its most intimate, cultured, and gastronomically accomplished — a city where the mountain, the river, and the creative community combine to produce something genuinely unique. The Tasmanian summer from December through March offers the warmest weather, though the MONA FOMA music festival in January and Dark Mofo festival in June (Tasmania's answer to winter solstice) provide compelling seasonal reasons to visit.