Every year a number of buildings in Brisbane are open to the public free of charge for “Open House Brisbane”

This year as part of our “Staycation” series, we stayed at the  Intercontinental (previously the Hilton) on the Queen St Mall and used it as a base for two days to look at lots of interesting buildings

I had made a list of buildings I would like to see and fed that into ChatGPT, and it came up with a suitable ( although not very accurately mapped) itinerary.

Saturday

Although check in at the Intercontinental was not until 3 o’clock, I had rung earlier in the week and explained that we were coming down for the Brisbane Open House weekend and would it be OK to have the car parked early and we would come back later to check in? I was told that that would be fine and we could arrive at any time.

We left home about 8:30 and made it into the city just before 10 o’clock. It was no problem at all to have the car parked, and we were directed to go up to level six to the main reception.

We got a lovely surprise when we got to reception in that our room was ready. The girl behind the counter could see where I had rung earlier in the week and what we were in Brisbane for.

After checking in, we made our way to the 19th floor in the Glass elevators and found our room

The Intercontinental is built around a huge Atrium that spans the entire height of the hotel.  It is quite a sight.

My first impression was that it was a lovely big room with plenty of light and a nice view over the city.

We unpacked made a cup of tea and then set about finding our way to our first stop of the day, which was going to be a day of churches

Here are some videos of the glass lifts in the Atrium.  One looking at it going up and one from inside as we went down

First was St. John’s Anglican Cathedral on Anne Street

Although it wasn’t too far to walk, I decided that there was to be a lot of walking this weekend so we may as well use the bus when we can.

It was very easy to find the bus stop on Adelaide Street and it took us up the hill and we got off near Water Street and walked up a small hill to St. John’s Cathedral

Although St. John’s was started in 1901 it was not completed until 2009

The cathedral itself is a stunning building with high voltage ceilings and beautiful sandstone walls

The organ in the cathedral is one of the largest in Australia and has over 4000 pipes. It was imported from England in 191010 and has been expanded a number of times.

While we were there, guides were offering bell tower tours, but we decided against it when we found out there was nearly 100 very narrow stairs. We could tell when the tour had made it to the bell tower as the bells rang out quite loudly. We’re sure it would’ve been quite deafening in the tower itself.

I was pleased to see that the Anglican Church has opened St. John’s as a sanctuary for the homeless, and there were signs on a couple of doors announcing where free meals could be obtained

Next to the cathedral is Saint Martin’s house this building was built in 1921 as a war memorial Hospital and it looked after returning soldiers from the first world war it continued operating right up until 1971

From St. John’s, we walked back down Adelaide Street towards the city to visit the Albert Street uniting Church.

I have known a number of people who have been married in this church, but have never actually been inside

On the way down Anne Street we noticed an orange Brisbane open house flag at a building so we stopped to see what it was. It happened to be the Brisbane Freemasons lodge.

We walked around and it was certainly a very grand building, but we must admit we still don’t really know what the masons are all about.

Further down Anne Street and we made it to the Albert Street Uniting Church.

The current church was started in 1888 and it was interesting to read that the colour scheme of red brick and white sandstone is to represent the blood of Christ in the red brick and the white stone represents purity.

After spending some time looking around, we made our way back to the Queen Street mall for lunch.

We decided on burgers and chips upstairs at Jimmy’s on the mall.

After lunch, it was not too far to walk to Saint Stevens Catholic Cathedral on Elizabeth Street.

The foundation stones for the cathedral were First Lady in 1863 and it was finished Somewhere around 1884 although further extensions happened in 1920

Prior to the cathedral being built, however there was a chapel which now sits next to the cathedral, which was completed in 1850. The Saint Stevens Chapel is Brisbane‘s oldest surviving church building and at one time Mary McKillip worshiped and worked here as a teacher.

The Christian Brothers opened their first school in Queensland in this small building, and the Christian Brothers are represented in one of the stained glass windows with the crisp of the brothers and the badge of Saint Joseph’s College at Gregory Terrace

It was interesting to read that the organ in the chapel has been housed in a number of buildings around Brisbane with the last being at the seminary in Banyo before the site was transformed into the Catholic University.

From St Stevens, it was a very short walk back to the Intercontinental.

We had a bit of a rest in the afternoon and then had a look around the rest of the hotel

There is a lovely pool and spa deck, and we almost regretted not bringing our swimwear

We asked at reception if we needed to make a reservation for dinner, but we were told that it should not be a problem as the hotel was not fully booked at all.

We had a lovely meal at the Latitude 27 restaurant.

M had a charred (quite small) half chicken and veggies

And I chose the lamb backstrap with herb crust and fondant potato

We then had Pavlova for desert and made our way back up to the room quite full and very satisfied.

Sunday

We woke up after a lovely night sleep. The bed was super comfy and block out blinds always help.

Back down to the restaurant we were able to have breakfast from 7 o’clock.

While the breakfast was very nice. I prefer the Hyatt Regency. They have a lot more choice.

We did not have a huge breakfast as we knew we had more walking to do today

The plan for today is to visit old government house in the botanic Gardens, then Parliament house next door then go across to Southbank to see the newly renovated terminus hotel for lunch

It is only a short walk from Elizabeth Street to the botanic Gardens down George Street and we arrived at old government house with about 10 minutes to spare before our tour started at 10 o’clock

Old Government House was built in the early 1860s very soon after Queensland separated from New South Wales and it was the first public building built in Queensland

The house remained the Home to Queensland governors from 1860 right up until 1910 when the governor of the time decided that the house was just too small and a new governor‘s house was built out at Bardon where it remains today.

When the governor moved out of the house, it was taken over by the first University of Queensland

The lady that conducted our tour was of course very knowledgeable and we did learn a few interesting facts one of which was around French Doors

We learned that the reason the French Doors have the handles so low is because of ladies corsets they simply could not bend, so the idea was to have the handle at the level where the lady simply needed to put out her hand at around hip height to open the door another reason for wide double French doors is again because of ladies dresses this was the time of wide hooped skirts and the double doors made it much easier to get in and out out of a room.

Another snippet we learnt was that the house was built where it is because the land looked very useful for growing gardens and crops….so they cleared it all.  Of course this meant that it flooded badly.  The decided to look for another spot for the crops and found a suitable spot and named it very creatively “New Farm” 🙂

Rather than abandoning the original farm, it was decreed that it could become a Botanic Garden and so it remains today.

From Old Government House, we made our way to Queensland Parliament house for a self guided tour.

We were surprised to find that we needed to go through airport style security to enter the building

Parliament house was built in the 1860s and by 1886. It became one of the first buildings in Brisbane to be lit by electricity.

The interior of the building is very ornate and it was interesting to walk around seeing places that we normally only see on television

From here, we walked back to the Botanic Gardens and caught the ferry from the QUT ferry stop over to Southbank

From the Southbank ferry stop it was a short walk over to Melbourne Street to visit the newly refurbished terminus hotel

The Hotel Terminus was built on the corner of Melbourne and Hope Street in 1927. It was called the Terminus as it was within walking distance of the Victoria Bridge and adjacent to the Melbourne Street tramline and benefited from being beside the Melbourne St., Greyhound bus terminal.

Known as the Fox Hotel in the 1990s , the building recently went under a total restoration and has opened with the original name of the Hotel Terminus.

They have done a great job, restoring the art deco interiors

The place was very busy when we arrived just on midday and we were told we would not be able to dine in the main dining room but there were tables available in the bar

We easily found a table and noticed there was a Sunday special of roast dinner with all the trimmings for $39 each. That sounded really good. Roast beef, vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire pudding -what’s not to like 😀

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and took our time before catching a bus back into the city and making our way back to the hotel for a quiet afternoon.

After having a big lunch, we decided we really didn’t want a full dinner so we ordered a cheese platter to come to our room and that really was all we needed.

We had a quiet night, packed our bags, ready to have breakfast in the morning before heading back to work and reality.

I highly recommend keeping an eye out for the Brisbane open house weekends there are so many buildings to see all over Brisbane and there is pretty much something for everybody’s taste

We had chosen the Intercontinental for this weekend as an alternative to the Hyatt Regency so how did it stack up?

As far as location goes, there’s really not a lot of difference. They both have direct access to the Queen St., Mall and both are quite easy to drive to both have valet parking. The intercontinental was slightly cheaper than the Hyatt by $10.

The service we received at the Intercontinental was on a par with the service we received at the Hyatt Regency which really is as it should be given both hotels are five star

The room at the Intercontinental was slightly larger than the room at the Hyatt Regency, but the bathroom at the Intercontinental was really odd.

The shower was a walk-in shower meaning as most walk-in showers you end up with water all over the bathroom floor. The only towel rail was inside the shower, and as this was literally the only rail towels needed to be dumped on the vanity basin bench

The toilet was placed a little too close to the glass shower screen, and you sort of had to sit at an awkward angle.

While, there was an extra extractor fan in the shower. It was not strong enough to pull out the steam. This meant the whole bathroom was quite wet on the first day. Emma had a shower at night and I had mine in the morning and it wasn’t too bad but on the last day, when we both had showers in the morning, it did not cope at all, and the bathroom was really, really wet. In fact, the box of tissues was soaked through and totally unusable.(surprisingly though the toilet paper stayed dry.)

The tea and coffee making station was larger at the Intercontinental and it did have a proper bar fridge, which made it easier to put our milk in

There was also a small Nespresso pod machine, but that was the only coffee available. There was no instant coffee at all only the pods.

There was much more room to actually make a cup of tea, though, as there was a shelf above that housed the lollies and chips, etc., for the mini bar at the Hyatt there is a tray of all those products and it takes up most of the space to make tea and coffee

The breakfast at the Hyatt Regency has a much larger range. Both hotels offered us tea and barista coffee as we were seated

I was brought a pot of tea, but when I went to look for another cup later, it was strange to find that the tea and coffee station had a good variety. There was no milk. The only milk I could find was with cereal. I guess the idea was to ask for another cup to be brought to me

All in all, though I would rate both hotels pretty much the same.