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| St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney CBD |
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| Mirror image captured of St. Mary's |
Exploring Sydney
We arrived and survived driving a large camper van through the downtown streets of Sydney! It took us one hour through a maze of streets to get the campervan drop off…the GPS kept instructing a route to by pass “toll roads” and thus sending us all over and around the city. Finally, we get to the drop off destination...
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| Stepping out into the city... |
Thanks to John who happened to book a “secret hotel deal” online, we ended up at the Sydney Boulevard Hotel within walking distance of the Opera House! Amazing!
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| Views over Sydney from our 17th floor hotel |
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| Sydney Harbor Bridge |
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| Sydney Opera House viewed from Circular Quay |
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| View from the Sydney Harbor bridge |
The hotel has just offered a new room overlooking the Sydney Harbor with its fabulous view! We can see all the sights; St. Mary’s Cathedral, the marina with boats coming and going, the top of the Opera House, the botanical gardens, the Harbor Bridge, the downtown buildings of the CBD district and the monorail passing over the freeways. This will be a treat for us, as we don’t often visit large cities. Especially, since we’ve been virtually camping on a boat for over a year!
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| Downtown Sydney |
We’ve spent the last two days walking the sights; the Rock district where we discovered the Rocks Brewery and found our favorite home brew so, the Circular Quay, Darling Harbor and all along the way stopping for a beer at the local pubs.
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| Favorite pub in the Rocks |
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| Shops in the Queen Victoria Building |
It’s a big city similar to San Francisco, but different in that there are many 18th century building preserved and re-used as shops and restaurants that make this city charming!
Our first night we discovered at trendy back street lined with boutique restaurants; there was Mediterranean, Italian, Japanese Sushi, Indian and Argentinean cuisines offered…we chose the fusion-Vietnamese restaurant offering stir-frys and exotic décor…it was delicious, but pricey.
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| Chocolate maker...yummm |
The next night, we dined at Brazilian BBQ. The one price meal includes an all-you can-eat of several roasted meats served with assorted roasted vegetables and fruits accompanied by beans potatoes and rice. The delicious BBQ meats are passed by waiters as they come hot off the grill. It was an interesting pace of dining and we were full in minutes! Lots of meats to try; lamb, peppered sirloin, bacon wrapped chicken, pork and chicken hearts! Grilled pineapple and deep fried bananas finish our meal.
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| Line-up at Gucci |
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| Street performers |
Sydney has proved to be a very culturally diverse city that I was hoping to experience. In fact, we seem to be the minority. The streets are filled with international tourists. There are many Chinese and Indians living and working here as well as Italians…still very few Aboriginals or blacks. The only indigent people we see are native dressed entertainers performing down along the wharfs.
The large botanical gardens that wraps around the Opera house on the Circular Quay is a peaceful place to escape the city buzz. Much like the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco…a welcome green-ness to rest and recover.
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| Taking a break... |
We enjoy the coolness as we pass through on several occasions on our walks through the city. In two days, Sydney prepares for its largest event of the year, New Years Eve fireworks over the harbor. The workers are busy putting up barricades and constructing the firework towers. We walk across the Harbor bridge to get a better view of the city. So much activity! We watch ferries come and go and the tourist crowds are thick on the streets! It seems all of Australia has come for the fireworks!
Next we move to Manly, a neighboring suburb across the bridge on the north side of Sydney Harbor.
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| Evening sets in Sydney... |
Good-bye Sydney!
