Cramped spaces, coffee and, if you're lucky, romance. Centre Place is part of Marvellous Melbourne

As part of The Age's Marvellous Melbourne series we are presenting 30 photographs in 30 days to celebrate our city.

Bookmark this page to come back and see each day's contribution from our award-winning photographic staff and regular contributing photographers.

Photograph #3 - Centre Place

All hard chairs and cramped confines and graffiti art, Centre Place is Melbourne's original laneway pitstop, where since the 1980s we've come to sacrifice comfort for style (and a good coffee). As the city awakens slowly from its COVID slumber, the tables are freer than they once were, but the interiors are as inviting as you remember, and on the menu are good food, fresh conversation, and perhaps even romance.

Photograph #2 - Williamstown by the water

As the sprinklers dance and whistle in the spring sunshine, it's a time like no other for a morning stroll along the water at Williamstown. The cranes of the city's port stand sentinel in the background as locals take to the shiny paths on the edge of summer and of hard-won freedoms in the new COVID normal.

Photograph #1 - St Kilda Pier

Traversed by tourists and tiny penguins and decorated with a quaint little kiosk, St Kilda pier has been one of Melbourne's go-to places for a breezy walk during COVID-19 lockdown. So deeply loved was the kiosk that, when it burned down in 2003, the state government volunteered to rebuild using the 1904 plans and that is how it rose from the ashes. The other favourite activity at the pier – a glimpse of the penguin parade – has been out of bounds since March because it's impossible to socially distance the crowds that squeeze on the viewing platform. With restrictions easing, that could open again soon, though there's no news yet. Meanwhile, you can still enjoy the view and the walk, now without a mask. Or, like this woman last week, a dainty little fossick across the rocks.