From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 30 April

Comparisons are odious, especially between Melbourne and Sydney, which is tantamount to comparing apples and pears; or asking a parent to choose a favourite child.

I HAVE lived in both cities, and each has qualities which are not duplicated, one to the other. It would be impossible to make a choice; or to say that one is better than the other. Both are wonderful, and for different reasons.

It would not be unreasonable to say Melbourne is more like London, and Sydney akin to New York.

Few waterways in the world compare with Sydney Harbour. It is the most spectacular body of water. On a sunny day, under an endless azure sky, it is breathtakingly beautiful. Travelling as I did each day by ferry from Balmain to Circular Quay, my excitement at passing under the bridge never dimmed. Looking-up at the steel-structure was magical – it made my heart sing!

When first I arrived in Sydney I lived in Coogee, a stone’s throw from the beach. While it was the poor state cousin to Cottesloe, Western Australia, with its blinding white sand, Coogee was a great stretch of beach.

King’s Cross in those days was an exciting Mecca, attracting one of everything, it seemed. I recall doing Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical at the Metro Theatre, Orwell Street. Hair was my first big show in Sydney, and it changed my view of the world. Consequently, life has never been the same. Never sleeping, Macleay Street positively vibrated!

Only Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco Bay challenge Sydney harbour; however, Melbourne has rewards which Sydney lacks.

The Melbourne city grid was laid-out with great wisdom and foresight, unlike Sydney’s impossible streets, some of which follow the old, winding tracks of the First Nation people.

The city centre is as fascinating as it is impressive. St Kilda Road Boulevard is one of the finest in the world. The view from Princes’ Bridge across to the Shrine of Remembrance is truly impressive; the lay-out of the King’s Domain with its trees, flowerbeds and clock, statues, Myer Music Bowl, and Government House sitting in 11-hectares of garden, is to be envied.

Melbourne has always been the home of good food. The new-Australian Greeks and Italians transformed the palate of the nation. They brought coffee, and led bravely when so much of Australia was still eating ‘chops and four veg’!

The numerous laneways of Melbourne provide a fertile breeding-ground for restaurants, nightspots, music venues, and bars. The graffiti in Hosier Lane, onto which the stage door of the old the Russell Street Theatre opened, is some of the best you will see, ever. The unsurpassed top-end of Collins Street!

Whelan the Wrecker destroyed too much of the city. Thankfully, much of the glorious, gold-rush, Victorian, Italianate architecture has survived – in particular the Princess Theatre, one of the world’s finest examples of the architectural style.

The late Norm Gallagher, a controversial Australian trade unionist and Maoist who led the militant, now deregistered, Builders’ Labourers’ Federation, single-handedly saved the Regent Theatre, one of only several surviving plaster-of-Paris follies in the world! For 25 years it sat rotting.

Let us not forget Melbourne’s trams. Those cities which, in moments of sheer madness, ripped-out the tracks, have lived to lament the day. It has cost Sydney millions of dollars to re-lay a small section.

Unsurprisingly, both cities are deemed the most liveable in the world. Let us not choose between – but rejoice we have two such glorious metropolises!

Roland can be contacted via [email protected].