Fremantle City consists of several smaller suburbs - Beaconsfield, Fremantle, Hilton, North Fremantle, O'Connor, Samson, South Fremantle and White Gum Valley. (East Fremantle is its own town.) The city has a total area of 18.7 square kilometers (that's 7.2 square miles for you Yanks). Fremantle gets 18,000 visitors a day with a 2001 population of only 25,000 so that should tell you there's lots to see and do. I'll try to give you the flavor of the area without too much detail.
Now that's a Town Hall! It opened in June 1887 in honor of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. It's not as fancy inside except the foyer, where they found elaborate decorations under old paint and restored them. This building houses the library, tourist information, and the usual administrative offices.
Here are some other buildings in no particular order for you to get a feel for the town.
St. John's Church was erected in 1882 but has windows from the old church that was built in 1843. The floor is Australian jarrah wood as is the floor of the home we're renting.
The pedestrian mall reminds me of Old Town Fort Collins but the shops are very different.
For one thing, we don't have palm trees in Colorado!
This building is the former trades hall, built in 1904. I don't know if you can see the three number eights at the top of the building but they stand for eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours of free time. Another theory is that they also represent pieces of eight. This was built in 1904.
This is the old Orient Hotel, infamous place where the successful escape of six Fenian prisoners was planned with the help of an American whaling ship. Fenians were the IRA of 1876 and planned to overthrow British rule of Ireland. Well, I'm tired for now after a hard day of housework (see, it's not all fun and games here!) so will leave the rest for another installment. We miss you all despite the fact that this is a wonderful place to be.
