Lonely Planet Sydney , livre ebook

Sydney

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to Sydney
Sydney’s Top 10
What’s New
Need to Know
Top Itineraries
If You Like
Month by Month
With Kids
Like a Local
For Free
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
LGBTQ+ Sydney
Beaches

Explore Sydney

Neighbourhoods at a Glance
Circular Quay & the Rocks
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
City Centre & Haymarket
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Darling Harbour & Pyrmont
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Kings Cross & Potts Point
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Paddington & Centennial Park
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Bondi, Coogee & the Eastern Beaches
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Around the Harbour
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Newtown & the Inner West
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Manly
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Day Trips from Sydney
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
Northern Beaches
Blue Mountains
Parramatta
Royal National Park
Sleeping

Understand

Understand Sydney
Sydney Today
History
The Arts
Architecture

Survival Guide

Transport
Arriving in Sydney
Getting Around
Directory A-Z
Customs Regulations
Discount Cards
Electricity
Emergency & Important Numbers
Etiquette
Internet Access
Legal Matters
Medical Services
Money
Opening Hours
Public Holidays
Safe Travel
Taxes & Refunds
Telephone
Time
Toilets
Tourist Information
Travellers with Disabilities
Visas
Work
Sydney Maps
Circular Quay & the Rocks
City Centre
Haymarket
Darling Harbour & Pyrmont
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Kings Cross & Potts Point
Paddington & Centennial Park
Bondi
Coogee
Around the Harbour
Newtown & the Inner West
Manly

Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes
Our Writers
Welcome to Sydney

Sydney, spectacularly draped around its glorious harbour and beaches, has a visual wow factor like few other cities. Scratch the surface and it only gets better.

Show Pony
Brash is the word that inevitably gets bandied around when it comes to describing the Harbour City; and let’s face it, compared to its Australian sister cities, Sydney is loud, uncompromising and in your face. Fireworks displays are more dazzling here, heels are higher, bodies more buffed, contact sports more brutal, starlets shinier, drag queens glitzier and prices higher. Australia’s best musos, foodies, actors, stockbrokers, models, writers and architects flock to the city to make their mark, and the effect is dazzling: a hyperenergetic, ambitious, optimistic and unprincipled marketplace of the soul, where anything goes and everything usually does.

Making a Splash
Defined just as much by its rugged Pacific coastline as its exquisite harbour, Sydney charms with its coastal setting. Jump on a ferry and it’s your oyster – the harbour prises the city’s two halves far enough apart to reveal an abundance of pearls. On the coast, Australia ends abruptly in sheer walls of sandstone punctuated by arcs of golden sand that are covered, in summer, with bronzed bodies making the most of a climate that encourages outdoor socialising, exercising, flirting and fun.

On the Wild Side
National parks ring the city and penetrate right into its heart. Large chunks of harbour are still bush-fringed, while parks cut their way through skyscrapers and suburbs. Consequently, native critters turn up in the most surprising places. Clouds of flying foxes pass overhead at twilight and spend the night rustling around in suburban fig trees; oversized spiders stake out corners of lounge-room walls; possums rattle over roofs of terrace houses; and sulphur-crested cockatoos screech from the railings of urban balconies. At times Sydney’s concrete jungle seems more like an actual one – and doesn’t that just make it all the more exciting?

After Dark
After a lazy Saturday at the beach, urbane Sydneysiders have a disco nap, hit the showers and head out again. There’s always a new restaurant to try, undercover bar to hunt down, hip band to check out, sports team to shout at, show to see or crazy party to attend. The city’s pretensions to glamour are well balanced by a casualness that means a cool T-shirt and a tidy pair of jeans will get you in most places. But if you want to dress up and show off, there’s plenty of opportunity for that among the sparkling harbour lights.

The Sydney Opera House at dusk | GUY VANDERELST/GETTY IMAGES ©

Why I Love Sydney
By Andy Symington
Sydney is full of charms, and the wonderful thing about the city is that people make a point of getting out there and enjoying them. Beaches, harbour, bars and restaurants; it’s always buzzing with multicultural Sydneysiders out for a good time. But they’re out there enjoying nature too. Growing up in a bushy suburb, I’ve always appreciated the extraordinary amount of wild space pervading this large metropolis. Walking national park and shoreline paths is one of the city’s great hidden delights, especially if you can get there on a harbour ferry, another love of mine.
For more, see our writers
Sydney’s Top 10

Sydney Opera House
1 Striking, unique, curvalicious – is there a sexier building on the planet? Seeing such a recognisable object for the first time is always an odd experience. Depending on where you stand, the Opera House can seem smaller or bigger than you think it’s going to be. It confounds expectations but is never disappointing. Most of all, it’s a supremely practical building and what goes on inside (theatre, dance, concerts) can be almost as interesting as the famous exterior. It’s a magnificent place.
1 Circular Quay & the Rocks

/ GETTY IMAGES ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Sydney Harbour Bridge
2 Like the Opera House, Sydney’s second-most-loved construction inhabits the intersection of practicality and great beauty. The centrepiece of the city’s biggest celebrations, the bridge is at its best on New Year’s Eve when it erupts in pyrotechnics and the image is beamed into lounge rooms the world over. Its sheer size is impressive, and as you explore Sydney there’s always some intriguing new view of it. The views it provides are magnificent, whether you’re walking over it or joining a BridgeClimb expedition up and over its central rainbow of steel.
1 Circular Quay & the Rocks

CHRIS BEAVON/GETTY IMAGES ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Sydney’s Eateries
3 Eat to the beat of a city resonant with the flavours of the multitude of cultures that inhabit it. Sydney’s dining scene has never been more diverse, inventive and downright exciting. Sure, it can be pretentious, faddish and a little too obsessed with celebrity chefs, but it wouldn’t be Sydney if it weren’t. It’s assuredly not a case of style over substance – Sydney’s quite capable of juggling both. Fine diners like Quay are standouts, but cheap noodles with BYO wine somewhere in the Inner West is another highlight.
5 Eating

TIMOTHY CHRISTIANTO/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Bondi Beach
4 An essential Sydney experience, Bondi Beach offers fabulous opportunities for lazing on the sand, lingering in cafes, carving up the surf, splashing about in the shallows and swimming in sheltered pools. Every summer the world comes to Bondi, and what a wonderful world it is. The tightly arranged beach towels form a colourful mosaic, and a walk to the water can reveal a multitude of accents and languages. After dark, the action shifts to accomplished restaurants, quirky bars and bustling pubs.
1 Bondi, Coogee & the Eastern Beaches

MATTEO COLOMBO/GETTY IMAGES ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Sydney Harbour National Park
5 Spread out around the harbour, this unusual national park offers a widely varied set of experiences, all with a blissful watery view. In this park, it’s equally possible to separate yourself from civilisation or to be surrounded by traffic. It incorporates harbour islands, secluded beaches, ancient rock art, lighthouses, untouched headlands and, right in the middle of the city, a historic cottage. You can kayak into otherwise inaccessible coves, plan your own ferry-hike combinations or cycle along well-tended paths. Pack a picnic and disappear along the bushy trails.
1 Around the Harbour

NORTH HEAD | SUIPPI/GETTY IMAGES ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Art Gallery of NSW
6 The stately neoclassical building doesn’t divulge the exuberance of the collection it contains. Step inside and a colourful world of creativity opens up, offering portals into Sydney’s history, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage, the outback and distant lands. There’s certainly nothing stuffy about the place. All are welcome (including children, who are particularly well catered for), admission is free, and complimentary guided tours help to break down any lingering belief that art is the province of a knowledgeable elite.
1 City Centre & Haymarket

ANDREW WATSON/GETTY IMAGES ©

Sydney’s Top 10
Royal Botanic Garden
7 Although the bustle of the city couldn’t be closer, these spacious gardens right in the centre of town are superbly tranquil – the only visible traffic being the little road train that whisks people around and the purposeful procession of ferries on the harbour. Whether you’re content to spread out a picnic on the lawn, stroll with glorious harbour perspectives or study the signs on the botanical specimens, it’s an idyllic place in which to hang around for an hou