KEY POINTS:
I have a long and dearly held aversion to romance. At least, the red-roses-I-can't-live-without-you variety. I thought Bridget Jones set women's credibility as emotional and rational beings back 30 years. Every time I hear co-dependency masquerading as love in a pop song, I want to shake someone (usually
the mewling power-balladeer - sorry, Celine).
It's not that I'm anti-love: just the hollow confection we're sold in its place.
So, Valentine's Day doesn't bring out the best in me. As a singleton, I'd ignore it outright, giving restaurants and movie theatres a wide, sneering berth.
But, now I'm in a relationship, it presents a conundrum. For I find myself craving a little romantic attention now and then. A surprise gift (something thoughtful and personal; still no roses); a candlelit dinner; a beach stroll at dusk. Writing this makes me squirm, but what's a girl to do?
Well, she could try taking her beau to Melbourne. (Better still, get him to take her.) A recent long weekend there = with a bunch of girls = convinced me Victoria's feisty maiden has rightful claim to the "Paris of the Pacific" tag.
The best thing about Melbourne as a couples' destination is, like Paris, there's so much to do, you have plenty of reasons for spending time apart, as well as together - which makes the couple time all the sweeter. In the words of that sage of modern life, Pink: "Go away/Give me a chance to miss you/Say goodbye/It'll make me want to kiss you."
To get you both in the mood, I effusively recommend a spa treatment on arrival. Book yourselves into a day spa and proceed there directly from the airport. We tried St Kilda Spa Dreamtime, which incorporates indigenous plant lore in its spa products and techniques.
I'd never had a facial before (that credibility thing again: I thought it precluded girly pampering. Newsflash: it doesn't.)
It was extraordinary. I lost count of how many layers of forest-scented goo my therapist massaged into my face and scalp. She also practised reiki on me, which I've also always been sceptical of, but my whole body was buzzing and tingling afterwards. I felt restored, calm and integrated, having arrived anxious and discombobulated post-red-eye flight.
Try the self-contained couple's treatment rooms. As well as facials, Spa Dreamtime offers various forms of massage, including high-pressure water and air jets, hand and foot treatments and body wraps. You can also take a dip in a purified sea-water pool or spa.
Now you should be relaxed enough to swoon about the city hand-in-hand. Central Melbourne's graceful proportions, ample parks and people-friendly tram system are a balm to urban stresses.
Fashion and "boutique" shopping abound for those special little one-off somethings (for stationery, try Il Papiro; for jewellery try Gallery Funaki or Ina Barry; for books the Paperback Bookshop or Metropolis Books), and, if you must have chocolate, seek out Koko Black's Belgian cacao decadence in Melbourne's oldest surviving arcade, the Royal Arcade, where giant mythological figures Gog and Magog ring their bells on the hour.
Koko Black's hot chocolate brings to mind the film Chocolat - Johnny Depp and chocolate, I defy you to find a better aphrodisiac.
A surprisingly good city oasis for lunch or dinner is Bokchoy Tang, in central Federation Square. Its contemporary Chinese food is worlds away from the greasy, MSG-spiked clumps served up at food courts.
Sick of shopping? Deepen your appreciation of art, and each other ("how profound!") in one or two of Melbourne's numerous galleries. Or quit the city for a day-trip to Mornington Peninsula, a gentrified sliver of Australia's vast great outdoors.
The region's as popular among weekending Melburnians as tourists. Peninsula Hot Springs is set in tawny McLeod's Daughters country, and the private pools are perfect for playing footsies. Try a traditional Aboriginal or Maori - yes, Maori - massage while you're there.
For something alcoholic with which to wash down all this romance try one of the 170 vineyards in the region. The one we visited, T'Gallant, has exactly what you feel an Ockker vineyard restaurant should: good-sized portions of tasty food, warm, unpretentious service, all in a shed open to the merciful breeze.
Back in the city, there are hundreds of potential sites for that romantic dinner, but if you really want to make it memorable, try the Age Guide's Melbourne Restaurant of the Year 2007 - Vue de Monde.
The restaurant has no view to speak of, but a casually luxe ambience that one becomes accustomed to very quickly.
Chef Shannon Bennett catches you off-guard with his left field, contemporary twists on classical haute cuisine, such as poached pigeon with parsnip remoulade and raspberry foam. It's the extreme sport of gastronomy.
The most challenging element of our degustation menu was the dish involving pureed mushroom soup to which a sodium compound had been added, so when it was piped through water it solidified into a fat grey slug of the most intense mushroom flavour you can imagine.
Almost every course came with its own wine-match. One of the desserts came in a half-dozen egg carton of eggshell-halves, every second one filled with a different, delectable mousse.
It's not cheap - five-courses cost $150 - but worth it for the lush drama of the experience.
A walk to calm the senses afterwards is advised. You could join the crowds taking the air along Southbank Promenade, on the bank of river Yarra. Here is a central public space without the air of menace and drunken aggression you get in most New Zealand cities at night. And, there are always gigs and late-night bars for winding down, or up, as your hearts desire.
Melbourne has no shortage of options once you've reached the point where you need to get a room. Fancy splashing out on a five-star love-nest in stumbling distance from inner-city bars?
Consider the Westin on Collins St. Although its beige-and-white decor and art collection felt a little safe and self-conscious for my tastes ("modern, chic and understated" is how it pitches itself), the beds stood up to their "heavenly" billing, managing to at once swallow and float you on the crispest of Egyptian cotton.
At which point, I should take my Valentine cynicism and leave you two alone. It's business time.
* - Nicky Shepheard travelled to Melbourne courtesy of Tourism Victoria.
