Just spent a week as a tourist in Sydney

I had some friends from Seattle come and stay for a week, so I took a week off work and did the tourist thing with them.
We did all the stuff I tell my Airbnb guests to do. We did the walk from Manly to The Spit, the South Head walk (with a beer at the Watsons Bay pub at the end), the Maritime Museum, a couple of art galleries, the South Pylon lookout, Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi, I borrowed a small ferry from a mate and we went boating, we saw a show at the Opera House and we ate at my favourite local places. It was great fun. Felt odd getting up in the morning and putting on holiday clothes and catching my usual commuter train into into the city.
It confirmed my theory that Sydney is a 10 day city i.e. it takes 10 days in the summer to see a good chunk of it. Rome, New York and London are 10 day cities, too.
Scott
 
Some other favourites are a walk across the harbour bridge and around Kirribilli, walking around The Rocks area (include the markets) and bus to Paddington to explore the beautiful terrace houses. Bonus is that all basically free.
Marg
 
Some other favourites are a walk across the harbour bridge and around Kirribilli, walking around The Rocks area (include the markets) and bus to Paddington to explore the beautiful terrace houses. Bonus is that all basically free.
Marg

I agree, all of the above is great. Love going up to Sydney for a few days. Food is great too. :)
 
One of my favourite walks to do in Sydney:

Start up in Darlinghurst/Paddington at a nice caf? for a bit of breakfast, walk down through the nice old terraces.
Wind your way down to the War Memorial at Hyde Park
Go through Hyde Park to St Mary's Cathedral
Walk down Gallery Rd to Art Gallery of NSW
Walk down further to Mrs Macquarie's Chair
Walk across the Botanic Gardens along the foreshore to Circular Quay
Check out the Opera House, Circular Quay, Customs House
Take a quick peek in to the MCA and then walk through the Rocks to the top of Observatory Hill
Wind back down and across the Bridge to Wendy Whiteley's Garden in Lavender Bay.

I think it shows the best of what Sydney has to offer as a city.

Big walk, you can split it up in to two days if you've got the time or the inclination.
 
I agree, all of the above is great. Love going up to Sydney for a few days. Food is great too. :)

Sydney used to lag melbourne a fair bit when it came to mid priced food and smaller bars etc but over the last few years it's really stepped it's game up. A few melb bartenders were telling me recently that they feel sydney is leading the nation atm and you wouldn't have heard that in the past
 
I still reckon Melbourne is ahead when it comes to small bars and coffee.

Overall melbourne is still ahead but sydney is catching up, I'm involved financially in that scene and people I'm talking to who I respect are speaking pretty highly of a fee sydney operators and operations this last 6 months.

Just my opinion of course. Coffee I'd agree melb is ahead but that's purely from an interested observers POV, I don't watch it closely as I have no financial interest in it
 
Some other favourites are a walk across the harbour bridge and around Kirribilli, walking around The Rocks area (include the markets) and bus to Paddington to explore the beautiful terrace houses. Bonus is that all basically free.
Marg
Yes the walk around the Rocks and across the bridge is great but if you only walk one way across the bridge it is better to organise to walk towards the city rather than away from it.
 
Great post - we all tend to overlook the own backyard.
In my opinion Sydney is more than a ten day city as if you go to the beach for a holiday you need at least a week. You would need a day on the harbour. 2 days for botanic gardens, The Rocks etc. Already up to ten days and haven't looked at any art etc yet. Oh, forgot Taronga Zoo, another day there.
I took the kids to the aquarium at Darling Harbour and was not impressed. Very outdated and quite an embarrassment really (eg I felt embarrassed for the overseas tourists).
 
Actually Depreciator, could you start up a separate thread on Melbourne, Perth, New York, London etc along similar lines as this thread. That would be very interesting.
 
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