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Queen Victoria Market

cnr Elizabeth & Victoria Streets, Melbourne
Trading Hours:
Tues & Thur. 6am - 2pm
Fri 6am - 6pm (general merchandise to 4 pm)
Sat 6am - 3pm
Sun 9am - 4pm
Closed - Anzac Day, Good Friday, Melbourne Cup Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Day, Australia Day

See also: Queen Victoria Summer Night Market

Website: Queen Victoria Market

Green tick

Trading but FOOD STALLS ONLY. To the best of White Hat’s knowledge, this event or location is operating as usual despite COVID-19 precautions. However, due to rapidly changing conditions, always double check with the organiser or institution before making a special trip.

The Queen Victoria Market is aptly named because she is the queen not just of Melbourne markets but of Australian markets.

If you only have time to visit one place in Melbourne, then it should be the Vic Market. But try to visit while all the produce stalls are operating (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings) because they make up the real heart of the market.

At the Vic Market you will immediately see a representative cross-section of Melbourne's population - its ethnic mix, dress styles, language and most of all their attitude to life. Faced with such animated and good-natured variety, it is hard to maintain for long that there is only one 'right' way to do things; that there is only one self-evident religion; that enmities from old countries should be continued in the new; that being called 'love' or 'darl' is sexually oppressive; that the working week that just passed is really that important.

The Vic Market brings city people in touch with earthy realities. It is very clear that meat comes from dead animals; that vegetables are grown in dirt; that sweat and energy is part of commerce; and that Collingwood will win the Grand Final this year.

It is truly the melting pot of Melbourne - Toorak matrons, tattooed labourers, politically correct families from the leafy suburbs, people from all walks of life.

Listen to the spruiking. Much of the language comes direct from the 1930s. Or maybe earlier, when the Sentimental Bloke of C. J. Dennis' poems went down to the rabbit stall at the Vic Market to meet his mate Ginger Mick ("e 'umps the bunnies when he toils does Mick").

Buy yourself sausage in a roll from the Bratwurst Shop and sit outside and watch Melbourne pass by. Particularly the children who believe that this is what life is like - only to be surprised when they move away from Melbourne.



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Our rating of Queen Victoria Market

Our rating - 4 Hats

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