Melbourne festival celebrates Greek culture

Fun, food and dancing brought Melbourne's Lonsdale Street alive for the annual Antipodes Festival. The Victorian capital is long believed to have the largest Greek community outside Greece itself.

The Greek community in Melbourne is celebrating Greek culture with a weekend festival of arts, film and food.

For 26 years, the annual festival has been held to remember the contribution of the community since its early days when the first immigrants arrived in Australia during the Gold Rush era of the 1850s. Since then, Greek communities have grown around most of Australia's major cities.

One street vendor said there are many reasons to celebrate during the festival.

"We've given you food, we've given you history. We'be given you culture, warriors, philosophers...a lot of things. What about democracy? We've given you democracy as well. I [almost] forgot the most important [contribution]," he said.