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I like to immerse myself in a city, whether I’m living there or just visiting for a few days. But how do you get to know a city? How do you get under its skin? How do you start to inhabit a place? In my experience, getting to know a city involves plenty of reading, amassing heaps of paper, and doing a lot of walking. So, having recently moved to Melbourne, I’ve been reading Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang, buying Melbourne-based newspaper The Age, and picking up every flyer, newsletter, and What’s On Guide I come across (I recycle them all, I promise).

And walking, oh so much walking. I love wandering around a city, working out how its streets and neighbourhoods ‘fit’ together and making mental notes of all the cafés, shops, and parks I want to go back to. This is particularly…