Rock the socks off your significant other with Melbourne Music Week (MMW), which might just be the reason why Melbourne is also known as the “live music capital.” The annual Melbourne Music Week is a 9-day rock music festival that celebrates the best of Melbourne’s creative music industry.

Melbourne Music Week has developed a knack for transforming spaces in the city into unique live music venues. Each year, the team appoints a different space as its hub; in 2016, the festival literally “broke the silence” at the State Library of Victoria. In 2017, the hub was situated at a suitably historic and hauntingly gothic venue – St Paul’s Cathedral.

In 2020 with music venues closed and artists unable to record and perform together, the Melbourne Music Week–Extended reinvigorated the Melbourne's music scene with 200 events over three months. Featuring headliners such as Aarøn B, Caleb, Djirri Djirri, and The Merindas, you can reconnect with your favourite artists online, in venues and out in Melbourne for an unforgettable first date!

Get directions to The Hub at St Paul's Cathedral

There is nothing like nature to engage you and your beloved’s senses of wonder and awe. As William Blake famously wrote, “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

A spot of such eternity can be experienced at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Walking around this 38-hectare expanse of beautiful sculptured greens, undulating hills, and tranquil lakes, you may momentarily forget that you’re still within Melbourne city limits.

The Gardens offers various workshops and tours throughout the year. One such tour is the Aboriginal Heritage Walk (daily except Saturdays, at 11:00am) where you’ll get to experience a traditional smoking ceremony and learn about the uses of plants as both food and medicine. Who knows? While learning together, you may also discover something new about each other.

Get Directions to Royal Botanic Gardens

You may think that cricket and romance don’t make sweet bedfellows, but there are lessons on love to be drawn from the sport; this quote by renowned former Aussie cricketer Steve Waugh is but one such gem: “The minute you hesitate you are in trouble.”

The Ashes is a biennial cricket series played between England and Australia. The series is named after the trophy, which is a small terracotta urn said to contain the burnt balls from a game played in 1882 at The Oval. Imagine how much heat that game must’ve generated as you stroll around the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG)'s luscious grounds.

England won the 2015 series and is the current holder of the “Ashes,” though the trophy itself is never physically awarded to either side, but is stored for safe-keeping in the MCC Cricket Museum at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

View Melbourne cricket matches

Get directions to Melbourne Cricket Ground

Fancy a surprise arranged by a group of food connoisseurs who will text you the secret location only 2 hours prior to the event? Say “hello” (and possibly “thank you”) to Secret Foodies.

You could end up dining on a rooftop somewhere in the city, or a dark graffiti-adorned laneway, or a heritage-listed barn – wherever it is, you’ll have loads of fun meeting fellow foodies. What’s more, you and your date would be surrounded by sensorially pleasing food, free flow of wine, and uninterrupted conversation.

Sign up to receive information on upcoming Secret Foodies events here.

If you don’t believe in keeping secrets in your relationship, no worries mate, we got ya. There’s still Lune Croissanterie. This artisan croissant bakery offers an intimate sampling experience, scientifically named “The Lune Lab.”

Here, perched on a bar seat, you can witness and savour a three-course pastry flight. Piping hot out of the oven, these divine confections are served by the founders, the Reid siblings, themselves.

While we can't be entirely sure that such a croissant degustation is the first of its kind, it certainly is the “hottest ticket in town,” according to Sprudge. (Tickets are also sold out for the rest of 2017.)

So, ditch the oysters. Perhaps croissants with their twisting soft dough curls, buttery taste, and petite ends, can also be quite the aphrodisiac.  

Get directions to Lune Croissanterie