Adelaide Audio Tours

Adelaide was Australia's only British colony founded without convict labour, a fact the city mentions with a regularity that might become tedious if the rest of its history were not interesting enough to justify the pride. Colonel William Light designed the city in 1836 with a clarity that still defines it: a central grid of wide streets, a ring of parklands around the perimeter, and five squares arranged in a pattern that was partly inspired by Philadelphia and partly by his own military experience. Locals navigate by the parklands and the grid together, and visitors rarely get lost once they understand that the parklands form a complete belt around the centre that you can walk or cycle without crossing a road.

The Barossa Valley, the Clare Valley and McLaren Vale are all within an hour's drive and produce some of Australia's most distinguished wines, particularly Shiraz, Grenache and Riesling.

Central Market on Gouger Street, open since 1869, is the best covered food market in the country by most informed assessments: the cheese stall alone, Smelly Cheese Shop on the Grote Street end, commands a small and devoted following. North Terrace is the cultural boulevard, where the Art Gallery of South Australia, the South Australian Museum, the State Library and the University of Adelaide form a walkable cultural corridor unlike anything in most cities of comparable size.