Sydney - Jan
9 - Jan 14
Our visit to
Sydney has been nothing short of spectacular. Whenever you see
pictures of Sydney, all you see in the Sydney Opera House and the
Sydney Harbor Bridge. You don't get a good perspective of the
size of the city, so I was figuring on it being about the size of
Dallas. On the way from the airport to our hotel, I was amazed
at the size of the buildings and the expanse of the city. It
is more the size of a Toronto or San Francisco.
The
thing that just keeps amazing me more than anything is how clean
everything is. Even in a city the size of Sydney, you don't
find litter laying around. I've seen one or two spots with
graffiti, but very small and you have to be looking for it.
If someone were to
ask me to describe Sydney, I would say that it has the hustle and
bustle of New York or Chicago, the cleanliness and architecture of
Toronto, and the beauty of San Francisco. It has a little bit
of everything, great sites to see, awesome views of the ocean and
bay, a variety of arts, and a ton of restaurants and pubs.
It's steeped with history since it is the first city to be built by
the settlers (or prisoners) that were banished from England to live
in Australia.
We
toured all over Sydney, shopped a lot and ate in as many different
places as possible. The hotel Michele found for us "The
Observatory Hotel" is a 5 star hotel right near the Rocks district
and within walking distance of everything we needed to see.
One of the coolest
things we did yesterday was climb the Harbor Bridge, the one
pictured above. There's a company that conducts tours of the
bridge and you climb all the way to the top, up the outer arch to
the flags at the top. It was extremely cool. We went up
in the evening to see the sunset and ended up getting caught in a
heavy downpour. Image yourself at the top of that bridge with
35 mph winds in rain so thick you could hardly see. The lights
of the city were on and though the rain was coming down, it looked
very cool. It was like we were in the clouds looking at the
rain fall from above.
We also went up in
the Sydney Tower, which is just like the Toronto CN Tower. We
got some great pictures of the city from there. Today we are
headed out on a helicopter tour of the city with some stops at
wineries along the way.
If you have the time, check out
the slideshow of over 240 pictures I took while walking around
Sydney. And if you ever get the chance to visit, do it!
Pictures taken during out stay in Sydney
Pictures taken during out stay in Sydney
