Where to stay in Melbourne: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Melbourne's city centre is a neat rectangle that turns out to be anything but orderly once you step off the main streets. Duck down a laneway and you are among street art, espresso bars and tiny restaurants; pop out the other side and you are in a nineteenth-century shopping arcade. Bourke Street Mall has the department stores, the theatres cluster at the eastern end, and trams within the centre cost nothing.

The smartest hotels gather along Collins Street, especially the top, known as the Paris end for its plane trees and boutiques. Here you will find a grand hotel that has been taking guests since 1883, with Parliament station beneath it, a boutique five-star opposite St Patrick's Cathedral, and a nineteenth-century neo-Gothic landmark with a glass atrium further down the hill. If you only have a few days, stay here and walk everywhere.

Cross the Yarra from Flinders Street Station and the city changes gear. Southbank is a riverside promenade of restaurants and bars with the skyline as a backdrop, the National Gallery of Victoria, Hamer Hall and the Arts Centre at one end and the Crown casino and entertainment complex at the other. It is polished, a bit glossy and extremely convenient.

This is where to come for a room with a view. Hotels here include a classic grand hotel on the riverbank styled like a Victorian mansion, five-star apartments next door to the concert hall and the big towers of the Crown complex with their own restaurants and cinemas. The CBD is ten minutes' walk over the bridge, and South Melbourne Market is a short stroll the other way.

Docklands is Melbourne's redeveloped harbour, on the western edge of the centre: glass towers, marinas and wide promenades around Victoria Harbour, with Marvel Stadium at its heart. It lacks the grit and history of the laneways, but it makes up for it in space, water views and value.

Much of the accommodation is apartment-style, with kitchens, balconies and one to three bedrooms, which suits families and longer stays. There is a hotel right on the stadium concourse for match days, and a striking glass-fronted five-star on the river built around a sustainability ethos. Free trams run from here into the CBD in minutes.

South Yarra is the city's well-dressed inner suburb, a few kilometres south-east of the centre. Chapel Street and Toorak Road are the catwalk, lined with fashion boutiques, cafés and restaurants, and the mood gets younger and looser as Chapel Street runs south into Prahran. The Royal Botanic Gardens are close by for a morning walk.

The hotels have personality. Two belong to a series of boutique hotels each dedicated to an Australian artist, with the work on every wall and, in one case, skyline views back to the CBD. Add a privately owned five-star with its own spa and a long-standing favourite in the middle of the restaurant district, and you have Melbourne's best area for a grown-up weekend.

North-east of the centre, Fitzroy and Collingwood are Melbourne's bohemian heartland: terraces painted with murals, vintage stores, independent galleries and more good bars per street than anywhere else in town. Hotels are a recent arrival and they fit the mood, from a boutique hotel among Fitzroy's hidden bars to a Soho-inspired newcomer on Johnston Street with a rooftop bar and heated pool.

Richmond, just south, is the practical cousin. It has its own strip of shops, cafés and bars, and the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the tennis centre at Melbourne Park are within a couple of kilometres, which makes it a smart base for the Boxing Day Test or the Australian Open. Skip the area if you want hushed corridors and a concierge; come if you want to eat and drink like a local.

St Kilda Road is the broad, tree-lined boulevard running south from the city towards the bay, and Albert Park Lake sits just beside it. The lake is ringed by a walking track and, once a year, by the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix circuit; the rest of the time it belongs to joggers and black swans. The Tan, the city's favourite running loop around the Botanic Gardens, is close too.

Hotels here are larger and calmer than in the centre, many with lake views, and you tend to get more room for your money. Trams run up to the CBD in one direction and down to St Kilda's beach and Chapel Street in the other. It is a good choice if you like green space and do not mind a short ride to dinner.