South Australia (Adelaide Region)
North Adelaide
North Adelaide, a ten-minute walk from the central area, makes for an enjoyable stroll past stately mansions and small, bluestone cottages, or a good pub crawl around the many old hotels. There are three ways of getting there. The best walking route to North Adelaide is up King William Road past the Festival Centre (nearly every bus from outside the Festival Centre also goes this way). 

From Elder Park you cross the pretty 1874 Adelaide Bridge over the river to Cresswell Gardens, home of the Adelaide Oval cricket ground (guided tour Tues & Thurs 10am, Sun 2pm; 2hr; $5), which has a small museum of cricketing memorabilia (Tues 10am–noon & Thurs 10am–1pm; $2) and affords superb views of St Peter’s Cathedral (daily 9am–5pm; free guided tours Wed 11am & Sun 3pm) on Pennington Terrace opposite Pennington Gardens. The Anglican cathedral was built in 1869 in French Gothic-Revival style; its main entrance is suggestive of Notre-Dame in Paris. The Cathedral Hotel, opposite, is Adelaide’s second-oldest hotel, built in 1850; it has a humorous “Quasimodo” theme and very good-value meals. 
At the top of King William Road, the peaceful and shady Brougham Gardens boast palm trees set against the backdrop of the Adelaide Hills. If you continue straight up, you’ll come to the commercial strip of O’Connell Street, which has an embryonic restaurant scene to rival that of Rundle Street.

If you want to see a wide range of early colonial architecture you might do better to head north via Morphett Street and Montefiore Road to Jeffcott Street (buses #233 and #253 from King William Street). Lights Vision, on Montefiore Hill in Montefiore Park, is a bronze statue of Colonel William Light pointing proudly to the fine views of the city he designed. 

On Jeffcott Street itself is the neo-Gothic 1890 mansion Carclew, with its round turret, and the Lutheran Theological College, a fine bluestone and redbrick building with a clock tower and cast-iron decoration. 

On peaceful Wellington Square the pretty 1851 Wellington Hotel retains its original wooden balcony. Turning into tree-lined Gover Street you’ll find rows of simple bluestone cottages; in contrast, Barton Terrace West, two blocks west, has grand homes facing the parklands.

The third route from the city to North Adelaide is via Frome Road (past the zoo) to Melbourne Street (buses #204 and #209 from King William Street, #272 and #273 from Currie and Grenfell streets), an upmarket strip of good cafés, antique stores, restaurants, designer clothing boutiques and speciality shops. The Banana Room along here at no. 125 (Fri 11am–6pm, Sat 10am–2pm) is probably the best retro-chic clothes store in Australia, with an immaculate range of designer dresses from the 1920s through to the 1950s; a 1926 Coco Chanel dress is on display. Don’t expect bargains – most things are over $100, but it’s fascinating to browse, and there is a range of cheaper costume jewellery.