Melbourne Cricket Ground

The Melbourne Cricket Ground has stood on this site since 1853 and now holds just over a hundred thousand people, making it the largest stadium in the southern hemisphere. The first Test cricket match was played here in 1877 and the first one-day international in 1971; it was the main stadium of the 1956 Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In winter it is the home of Australian rules football, hosting the Grand Final each September before a full house, and the Boxing Day Test each December is a fixture of the Australian summer. Behind-the-scenes tours run on non-event days, and the National Sports Museum inside holds collections across Australian sport.

What you actually see

• The bowl - a hundred thousand seats seen from the ground on a tour.
• The National Sports Museum - collections spanning cricket, football and the Olympics.
• The Boxing Day Test - the summer cricket fixture that fills the ground.
• The football season - Australian rules from March to September, including the Grand Final.

When to go

March to September for football, December for the Boxing Day Test; tours run on non-event days year-round. Grand Final and Boxing Day tickets are extremely hard to obtain. Ordinary home-and-away football matches are cheap and easy to attend.

Honest expectations

Tours do not run on match days and access varies with events. The stadium is enormous and seats in the upper tiers are a long way from the play. Big matches mean severe crowding on trains and long queues at the gates.

Nearby

Melbourne Park and the tennis centre are adjacent; the city centre is a short walk west.