Sydney is an special city, something I never have seen before.
My husband, John and I visited this amazing place on earth earlier this month.
It is over 11 000 km by aeroplane from here and a different world and continent.
When we had the opportunity to attend the 2014 Rotary International conference in Sydney and we decided to explore the city three days before the conference.
I never had this city and country on my bucket list, but after our visit to Australia, and especially Sydney, I believe every one has to see this country at least once in their lives.
The Rotarians of Sydney gave us free travel passes, so we used the city’s suburban trains, buses and ferries extensively.
I loved the ferries and even considered becoming a ferry skipper in my next life.
What was an initial shock to me was that motorists stop for pedestrians, if they cross the street at designated areas.
Another shocker was when all of the Australian modes of transport were always on time and the insides squeaky clean.
In fact as you leave the train, the last thing you hear is “please take your rubbish with you.”
Sydney is built around an estuary, with places like Manly, Watsons Bay, Darling Harbour and Paramatta easily accessible via the ferry.
The city centre is something I never experienced. It has high rise buildings with preserved older buildings in between.
Residential dwellings close to the city are very small and without a front garden. I noticed the closer to the city, the smaller the garden.
The shopping centres we visited resembled some of our upmarket shops.
The shock for me was that from street face it seems like one building, but when you enter it has up to six storeys.
Although Sydney has about four million people living in it, you never feel claustrophobic, as the parks and open spaces inside was a treat with the lots of space to sit under peaceful trees.
We stayed in the eastern seaside suburb of Bondi Beach where we walked along the shore during the night, enjoying he mild Sydney winter nights (we even had Italian ice cream one night).
One of our days we took a ferry to Manly and another day one from Watsons Bay across the bay to Sydney Olympic Park up the Paramatta River.
The busy hub of Circular Quay was one of our first stops as visitors to Sydney.
Besides the train and some buses this is the place where you get ferries to almost all destinations in the city.
Because the famous Sydney Opera House, as well as the harbour bridge, is situated at Circular Quay we spent a lot of time here, enjoying the beauty of the place.
We walked around the huge opera house and walked on the roadside to see the quay from the top. Yes, we saw this quay from all angles.
During our stay the artists of Sydney created the vivid laser light show that after dark transformed this quay-area into a magical world.
The show lit up the opera house in a special way and it was quite different than seeing the building during the day.
Central Station is another hub from where the public transport vines into the city.
Because Sydney has highly congested streets, we learned quickly that the train was the best mode of transport here, thus going to this station each day.
From Central we one day walked along Elizabeth Street past St Mary’s Cathedral to Circular Quay to experience Sydney’s high rise buildings and fast paced streets.
Along our way we went past many peaceful parks with plaques to commemorate some point in the Australian history.
One thing I learned about the Australians was that they celebrate and commend their people. This is the plaques you see in the parks or the statues all over the city
We also spent time with the locals at Paddington Market and went to “remote” places like Dullwhich Hill and Epping station.
Yes, this is an awesome city. We did not even go to the Blue Mountains and the areas north of Manly.
Next time more about the other cities we visited in “down under.”
