The back story
The harbour city: reading Sydney’s great sights
The Opera House on Bennelong Point, the Bridge over the harbour, the convict barracks on Macquarie Street, the ferries to Manly and Taronga, and the beaches of the east: how to read Sydney.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsSydney is built around one of the world’s great natural harbours, and almost every famous sight is on or near the water. Its first people are the Gadigal of the Eora nation; the British First Fleet anchored in Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. Two of the city’s landmarks are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List: the Sydney Opera House, inaugurated in 1973, and Hyde Park Barracks with Cockatoo Island, part of the Australian Convict Sites.
The harbour
The Sydney Opera House stands on Bennelong Point; UNESCO calls it “a great architectural work of the 20th century”, designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, whose design an international jury chose in 1957. Across Sydney Cove, the Harbour Bridge opened on 19 March 1932 (Museums of History NSW); you can walk across it, or climb its arch with BridgeClimb.
The convict city
Hyde Park Barracks on Macquarie Street opened in 1819 and housed convicts, then immigrant women and courts; it is one of the eleven Australian Convict Sites on UNESCO’s list, as is Cockatoo Island in the harbour.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe ocean beaches
Bondi, Bronte and Coogee are joined by a clifftop walk; Manly is a ferry ride from Circular Quay. Swim between the red and yellow flags: rip currents are the main hazard, GOV.UK warns.
Buy an Opal card or tap your bank card, and see Sydney from the ferries.
Our advice: the Manly ferry from Circular Quay is the finest harbour cruise in Sydney, at a commuter fare.
Why it's on our list
- The harbour
- The convict city
- The ocean beaches
Location
The map comes from Google Maps, which sets its own cookies once it loads.
More in depth
History & heritageSydney: from Gadigal Country to the harbour cityGadigal Country, the First Fleet of 1788, the convict barracks, the railway workshops, the Bridge of 1932 and the Opera House of 1973: Sydney’s heritage, told plainly.
The back storyFrom Naala Badu to the Opera House: Sydney’s artsThe Art Gallery of New South Wales and its new building, the MCA at Circular Quay, Chinese contemporary art in Chippendale, the Sydney Symphony under the sails and the theatres of Walsh Bay: the arts in Sydney.
The back storyWild Sydney: Flying-Foxes, Penguins, Kookaburras and WhalesA flying-fox camp in Centennial Park, the only mainland penguin colony in New South Wales at Manly, kookaburras and lorikeets in every park, water dragons by the ponds, and whales passing the heads: Sydney’s wild side.