Hobart: contemporary art at the foot of kunanyi

Capital of Tasmania and second-oldest city in Australia, Hobart has built its recent fame on one of the world's most provocative art museums, carved into a cliff outside the city.

The historic center can be explored on foot; the museum is best reached by dedicated ferry.

Every Saturday since 1972, the red sandstone warehouses of the 1830s at Salamanca Place serve as the backdrop for one of the island's most frequented markets.

Just steps away, one walks among the low houses of Battery Point, a former quarter of dock workers, which takes its name from a battery of cannons installed in 1818.

Sailing up the Derwent River by ferry, one reaches the MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art opened in 2011, which hosts contemporary and ancient works side by side inside a cave quarried from the rock.

Toward evening, the climb to kunanyi/Mount Wellington, twelve hundred seventy meters above the city, provides a view of the entire estuary just as the sun begins to set.

The ferry to MONA, with its militaristic interiors and camouflage-pattern sheep printed on the seats, is part of the artistic experience nearly as much as the works displayed inside the museum.

The dual name kunanyi/Mount Wellington, officially recognized only in 2013, still coexists on city signage today: some signs use one, others the other, and still others both together.