48 Hours in Adelaide
Text by Roff Smith

South Australia's seaside capital boasts a cosmopolitan center surrounded by serene parkland.

It's hard to put a finger on Adelaide. It has that curious blend of high sophistication and big country attitude. On the one hand it is Australia's cultural heart, home to international festivals of music, arts, film, and literature. It hosts a Thinker-in-Residence, a Festival of Ideas, and its Fringe Festival is the second largest in the world. The city's streets are lined with jazzy wine bars and sidewalk cafés. The Adelaide Arts Centre is said to have better acoustics than the Sydney Opera House. And three of the world's great wine districts lie just an hour away.

Yet it is also a charmingly old-fashioned city of wide sun-drenched streets, a low-slung skyline free of skyscrapers, and close to the bush. In fact, a 20-minute drive into the hills will take you along quiet, gum-shaded backroads where you're more likely to see a kangaroo then a connoisseur. "It is a wonderfully human city," says Maggie Beer, an Australian food producer. "Everything is close and intimate, particularly when the festivals are on. It feels like everybody in town is involved."

Fast Facts

The capital of the state of South Australia, Adelaide was laid out in 1837 by Colonel William Light, a gentlemanly British Army surveyor who drew upon the classical designs of Italian cities he'd admired when he'd done the Grand Tour as a young man. He pegged out a grid—one imperial mile square—which he inlaid with parks and commons and then surrounded with a swath of green so that today much of downtown Adelaide resides within a park. The city enjoys a classic Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry, sunny summers and cool, moist winters.