Canberra

Canberra manages to avoid some of the uninspiring aspects of planned cities, with its many curved roads in place of a dull block layout. Nevertheless in terms of scale it's made for the car, not the pedestrian, which makes getting around a little bit inconvenient. For example, evening buses don't really exist, and they're not frequent in the daytime either...

Still, there's a good number of places to see. I enjoyed the Glassworks, a workshop-cum-gallery at which you can watch the artists at work creating, shaping and decorating glass pieces. The hot workshop, where they do the initial stages of the process on glass at over 1000 Celsius, is the most fascinating part. Tempting to go back and do a make-your-own paperweight session.

Parliament House is home to the two houses of the Australian parliament, which are obviously modelled on the British Houses of Commons and of Lords, from the green and red colour-schemes, to Hansard, the despatch boxes and the mace, and to the directly opposing front benches of the two main parties (even though much of the rest of the rooms have semi-circular seating).

Mount Ainslie provides a good view over much of the city. I walked up as the sun was setting, and was fortunate enough to see plenty of active kangaroos right next to the main path.