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Melbourne has a deserved reputation for fickle weather and tends to experience greater extremes than other state capitals, with colder winters, hotter summers and changeable climatic conditions in any season. (These things are relative, of course, and most North Americans and Europeans will find Australian winters, even those in Melbourne, fairly mild.) Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, so seasons are the opposite of those in the Northern Hemisphere, with summer running from December through February and winter from June through August. January is typically the warmest month (temperatures average 79 degrees Fahrenheit, 26 degrees Celsius), while July is the coldest (average temp: 55 degrees Fahrenheit, 13 degrees Celsius).

Depending on your bent, spring can be a great time in Melbourne, thanks to the feverish excitement brought on by November’s Melbourne Cup, a major horse race that, as the cliché goes, “stops the nation.” Sometimes compared to London’s Ascot, thanks to its similar mania for ever bigger and more elaborate hats, the race is held in early November. The Fringe Festival and Melbourne International Arts Festival, two annual arts love-ins, also take place in spring, as does the AFL Grand Final, the equivalent of the Super Bowl in Australia’s avidly followed football season. Summer is also ideal, especially for tennis fans, who can thrill to the action of the first grand slam of the year, the Australian Open, held in mid-January.