Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey - Moon Spotlight Sydney

ULRIKE LEMMIN-WOOLFREY

To call Sydney iconic is an understatement. The poster city for Australia is all about the harbor, with its natural beauty as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. One of the largest and most beautiful natural harbors in the world, the setting could not be more glorious if an entire conglomerate of top-notch town planners had tried.

Sydneys ancient history goes back to some 50,000 years ago, when anthropologists believe the Aboriginal people first reached Sydneys natural harbor, yet its more modern history does not start until 1770, when Captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay just south of Sydney and brought his tales of the long-sought and finally found Great Southern Land back to Britain. A few years later, with the American Revolution hampering the habit of transporting convicts from Britain to the Americas, it was decided that the land around Botany Bay would be suitable for future convict deportation. When the First Fleet of 11 ships landed on the southern coast, Captain Arthur Phillip deemed Botany Bay unsuitable due to its lack of fresh water, but he discovered a near perfect natural harbor a little farther up the coast, eventually deciding to settle at Sydney Cove, now Circular Bay.

Look for S to find recommended sights, activities, dining, and lodging.

S The Rocks: This is where it all started, where the First Fleet landed and the first settlers arrived, voluntarily or not. There is a great atmosphere of history in the air, the buildings are all wonderful, and the area is dotted with cafs, restaurants, and shops ().

S Sydney Opera House: It really doesnt get more iconic than the Sydney Opera House, one of the most widely recognized buildings in the world ().

S BridgeClimb: To get a view like no other, climb Sydney Harbours iconic coat hanger bridge. It looks steeper than it is and the climb is slow with plenty of breaks, making it accessible for nearly everybody ().

S Manly Ferry: This commuter ferry goes past the opera house, all along the harbor, and past the islands to the entrance to the ocean at Manly. For a handful of dollars you get hundreds of dollars worth of views ().

S Macquarie Street: If you just see one street in Sydney, this must be it. Every building is historic, and the road stretches from the opera house, past the Royal Botanic Gardens, to Hyde Park. Take your time and pop into all the buildings along the way, and youll have a great idea of Australias history ().

S Hyde Park Barracks: This museum concentrates on Australias first settlers, the workers that built the colonyhow they lived, worked, struggled ().

S Art Gallery of New South Wales: Located in the beautiful Domain, with great views, the gallery is a fantastic collection of old European, contemporary, indigenous, and ancient Asian art ().

S Sydney Tower Eye: Get a good overview of this sprawling metropolis from up high. You can even do yoga or be daring and do a skywalk ().

S Taronga Zoo: Sydney is all about viewseven the zoo has them. Stand by the giraffes and see the Sydney skyline, opera house, and bridge from there. Oh, and the animals, from near and far, are wonderful, too ().

S Bondi Beach: This is one of the best-known beaches on the globe. Curved along the bay, fringed by rocky outcrops and the village, as the suburb proudly calls itself, the beach attracts surfers, bathers, and the famous lifeguards. And the stunning Bondi to Coogee walk starts here ().

Sydney Cove, and with it Sydney itself, was named after Captain Phillips superior, Lord Sydney, and the day of the arrival of the First Fleet, on January 26, 1788, has gone down in history as the annually celebrated Australia Day. The first settlers were not terribly well chosen to establish a new colony in the land down under, with no carpenters, smiths, or even farmers among the officers or the convicts, but inroads were made due to teamwork, the need to survive, and sheer determination.

More and more voluntary settlers arrived together with regular supply ships from the homeland, trade routes were established with the Americas and Asia, and the wealth of the new world began to show in imposing buildings commissioned by Governor Lachlan Macquarie (governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821). The discovery of gold in the mid-1800s further drew more settlers and established the wealth and grandeur of Sydney.

Today, Australias largest city has nearly five million inhabitants. Sydney spreads itself sumptuously along its sunken river valley, hemmed by some of the worlds most expensive real estate. Being the financial capital of the country, the first stop for most visitors and would-be immigrants, the media hub, and the entrepreneurial engine of the entire continent, Sydney not only attracts money, it also demands it. Just recently, Sydney was named one of the most expensive cities of the world to live in.

Pricey or not, people come to Sydney and fall in love. The beauty of the harbor, the majestic buildings in the town center (Central Business District or CBD) harking back to prosperous times that started back in the early 1800s, and the proximity of some of the worlds most famous and surfable beaches along the Pacific coast, together with the city being the hub from where to reach the rest of this rather large country, all make for a popular gateway to Australia and a stunning city in its own right.

More than a third of Sydneys population was born outside Australia, and most Australians descend from immigrants themselves, so the feeling in the city is one of a worldly cosmopolitan metropolisa metropolis where at every turn you hear a different language, can enjoy a vast array of cuisines, and have great shopping. Still it is a very historic city, even if this is a relative term when you think how young the modern history of Australia is. Just as in Manhattan, it pays to look up and marvel at the variety of architecture: You have the imposing Victorian buildings, majestic Art Deco towers, and stunning modern high-rises.

Sydney is a great mixing and melting pot of people and styles. It is stunning and mostly sunny, offering beaches, pavements, history, and modernity. It captivates you. And often doesnt let you go again, as most of the recent immigrants to this Lucky Country can pay testament to.

Like all of the worlds great cities, Sydney is brimming with things to see and do, and demands time. With nearly five million people calling Sydney home, it is not only Australias largest city, but also larger than the inner city of Los Angeles, and even if you would move here, youd never get to see everything or experience it all. So you will just have to try to squeeze as much into your allocated time as possible. And it all depends on what your interests are.