Adelaide Hotels

Stately, elegant, gracious? Yes, but don't be fooled by Adelaide's ‘City of Churches' tag. It's also progressive, proud and idiosyncratic – as obsessed by art as it is by Aussie rules football – and as eager to have fun as any other city in the country.

Bunched conveniently together are the South Australian Museum, the Botanic Gardens and the Art Gallery of South Australia – with its impressive collection of indigenous South Australian art. Open your mind even more at Port Adelaide's fascinating Maritime Museum and Migration Museum, or come into contact with indigenous culture at the Tandanya Cultural Centre.

Explore the leafiness of the newly landscaped Adelaide Parklands. This green belt area, stretching north of the city along the River Torrens, includes the cultural precinct of museums and art galleries.

Sample the best local produce such as cheeses, breads and especially wines, made in regions such as the Barossa and Coonawarra, just hours away from Adelaide. Wander through the department stores of the Rundle Street Mall and the charming, surprising boutiques of the Adelaide Arcade for clothes and chocolates.

Famous for its greenery, Adelaide's great outdoors begin in the heart of town at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and Elder Park to the north of main street North Terrace. Within 12km of the city centre, the Belair National Park provides a rural escape in the midst of suburbia, while you can get a view over Adelaide from Beacon Hill. Favourite Adelaide beaches include Glenelg and Henley Beach. Further out of town are the Adelaide Hills, the highest of which is 727m Mount Lofty.

The Adelaide Festival Centre is the performing arts hub of the city, and the heart and soul at the biennial Adelaide Festival of the Arts. As well as a sculpture garden, it contains several theatres that hold up to 6,000 theatregoers. Other Adelaide cultural spaces include the Adelaide Repertory Theatre, Australia's oldest continuing amateur theatre company, and Her Majesty's Theatre, a grand 1913 home to plays, live concerts and some opera.

Hutt Street in the city centre is home to some of the city's best restaurants. At nearby Rundle Mall, alfresco café dining makes the most of the fine climate. Gouger Street is the hub of multicultural cuisine, and also the site of Adelaide's Chinatown.

Pop open the cork of a Barossa cabernet on a picnic blanket at the top of Beacon Hill. Take in the 360° vista of the city, hills and sea.