Friday, September 19, 2008

Vacations In Melbourne


Australia's vibrant destination, Melbourne takes you to a never ending world of fascination. It encompasses an abundant concentration of museums, monuments, parks, gardens, and beaches. Not only this, the city also hosts a large number of cultural festivals which focus on its traditionalism. Meanwhile, Melbourne Hotels offer homelike accommodations facilities and important services to make you spend a comfy stay.

In Australia, the Summer season officially lasts from December to February, and therefore coincides with the Christmas and New Year holidays. The dates of Australian school holidays (the term used, rather than "vacation") are determined by each state's Department of Education, the Summer (also known as Christmas) holidays being the longest in duration. Typically Christmas or Summer holidays in Australia last approximately six weeks, usually from around December 20th (depending on school year, see below) to the last few days of January. While significantly shorter than the North American Summer vacation, Australian schools also break for two weeks at Easter, and in June and September, giving students and teachers a total of twelve weeks of annual holidays .

In many public schools, years 10 through 12 will finish before December 20th, allowing time to complete exam marking and results. Year 10 commonly finishes at the end of November, Year 11 at the end of October, and year 12 also at the end of October after 3 weeks of end-of-year exams. This can bring the normal 12 weeks of vacation to 20 weeks of vacation.

The intervening periods of school operation are called "School Terms", each term lasting approximately ten weeks. All Australian states have relatively similar holiday periods, but there is the ability for this to change around, such as for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth games, when the first term in Victorian schools was shortened to 6 weeks and the other subsequently extended to 12 weeks each allowing people to attend the events. Most private schools in Australia have up to four weeks additional holidays, due to their longer teaching hours during term.

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