Harbour icons, ocean pools and the art of doing brunch properly.
Sydney seduces on arrival. The plane banks over a harbour so extravagantly blue it looks colour-graded, the Opera House sails glint below, and 5.5 million people go about their day convinced — with some justification — that they live in the world's most beautiful city. Here's how to spend three days like you mean it.
Start at Circular Quay before 9am, when the light is soft and the crowds are thin. Walk the harbour foreshore to the Sydney Opera House — closer up, those famous sails are covered in more than a million cream and white tiles that shimmer rather than blind. Book a one-hour guided tour, or better, book whatever is playing tonight; concert tickets often cost less than the tour and you get the building as it was meant to be experienced.
Loop through the Royal Botanic Garden to Mrs Macquarie's Chair for the postcard angle where Opera House and Harbour Bridge line up together. In the afternoon, cross the bridge itself: the pedestrian walkway is free, or the famous BridgeClimb takes you over the arch's summit, 134 metres above the water. Finish in The Rocks, Sydney's oldest neighbourhood, where convict-era warehouses now hold pubs that have been pouring since the 1840s.
Catch the bus to Bondi Beach early and do the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk — six kilometres of sandstone cliffs, ocean pools and surf beaches that constitute perhaps the world's best free tourist attraction. Allow three hours with swim stops: Bronte's baths, Clovelly's calm inlet, and Gordons Bay's snorkelling all deserve your time.
Back at Bondi, swim in the Icebergs pool, the ocean pool photographed more than any other on Earth, then eat at one of the beachfront cafés (avocado toast was arguably invented in this postcode; order it without irony). If the surf's calling, learn where everyone learns: the gentler northern end of the beach with one of the surf schools.
Sydney's ferries are public transport masquerading as sightseeing cruises. Take the Manly ferry — thirty minutes of harbour panorama for the price of a bus ticket — and spend the morning on Manly's ocean beach and the Shelly Beach snorkel trail. Return via a ferry to Taronga Zoo if you're travelling with kids (giraffes with Opera House views), or hop off at Watsons Bay for fish and chips at Doyles and the short walk to the South Head lighthouse.
Sydney's food scene runs on immigration and it shows, deliciously. Yum cha in Haymarket, Thai on King Street Newtown, Vietnamese in Marrickville, and Italian in Leichhardt. For a splurge, the harbourside fine diners (Quay, Bennelong inside the Opera House itself) are genuinely world-class. Budget tip: the fish market at Blackwattle Bay does sashimi breakfasts that beat most restaurants at a third of the price.
The Blue Mountains are two hours west by train from Central Station: eucalyptus canyons, the Three Sisters at Echo Point, and mountain villages with open fires in winter. The Hunter Valley wine region and Royal National Park's Figure Eight Pools reward a hire car.