Star Bar 
The neighbourhood
Launceston,
from our door
The whole city is smaller than people expect. Almost everything worth seeing is closer than a taxi is worth.
Where you are
In the middle of it
Star Bar Café & Hotel is at 113 Charles Street, in the centre of the Launceston CBD. The Brisbane Street Mall, Civic Square, City Park, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, the Princess Theatre and the Albert Hall are all within a short walk, and Cataract Gorge is about twenty minutes on foot. Launceston Airport is roughly fifteen minutes by car.
Launceston is a city of about seventy thousand people sitting in a bowl where the North and South Esk rivers meet to become the Tamar. That geography is why the light is so good in the evening, and why the whole centre is walkable: there was never anywhere for it to sprawl.
If you are staying upstairs, you can leave the car wherever you put it on arrival and not touch it again until you go.
On foot
Everything within a walk
Times are from our front door, at the pace of somebody who has had lunch.
- 2 minutes
- Brisbane Street Mall. The main pedestrian shopping strip, and the quickest way to anything you forgot to pack.
- 3 minutes
- Civic Square. The civic heart of the city, with the library, the council chambers and a good deal of open brick.
- 4 minutes
- Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. One of the oldest regional museums in the country. The Inveresk site across the river holds the rest of the collection.
- 5 minutes
- City Park. Victorian gardens, a conservatory, and a troop of Japanese macaques that have lived there since 1980 and are entirely unbothered by any of this.
- 5 minutes
- Princess Theatre. The city's main stage. If you are coming to a show, eat here first: our kitchen closes at 8.30pm and the curtain usually does not.
- 6 minutes
- Albert Hall. The heritage exhibition and concert hall on the edge of City Park.
- 10 minutes
- Seaport and the North Esk. The waterfront redevelopment, good for a walk before dinner.
- 20 minutes
- Cataract Gorge Reserve. The reason half the state's visitors come north. A river gorge inside the city limits, with a chairlift, a suspension bridge, peacocks and a swimming pool. Walk it before breakfast and you will have the place largely to yourself.
A short drive
Worth the car
Northern Tasmania packs a lot into a small radius. The Tamar Valley wine route starts about twenty minutes north, and most of the region's best-known food and drink is inside an hour.
- 15 minutes
- Launceston Airport
- 20 minutes
- The Tamar Valley wine route, running north along both banks of the river
- 25 minutes
- Hollybank and the forest reserves east of the city
- 50 minutes
- Ben Lomond, and the only skiing in this part of the state
- 1 hour
- The north coast, and the seafood that ends up on our menu
- 2.5 hours
- Hobart, if you are driving the length of the island
Distances are approximate and assume you are not stopping, which, on the Tamar, you will be.
Getting here
Parking and transport
- Street parking
- On Charles Street directly outside, metered during business hours
- Car parks
- Council multi-storey car parks within a block in either direction
- From the airport
- About 15 minutes by car or taxi, straight into the CBD
- Buses
- Metro Tasmania services run through the city centre, a short walk away
- On foot
- Most of the CBD is within ten minutes, and it is flat until you reach the Gorge
- Getting home
- Taxis and rideshare both operate in Launceston, or take a room upstairs
Staying with us
The case for upstairs
Everything on this page is why the rooms upstairs make sense. You are in the middle of the walkable part of the city, above a kitchen and a bar, and you do not need to drive to any of it.
Walk the Gorge before breakfast, do the museum after it, be back for a drink on the roof at the good hour, eat downstairs, and go up three flights of stairs to bed.
The best of Launceston is a short walk from this door
And the last one of the night is downstairs.