Insight Guides Pocket Sydney (Travel Guide eBook)

By Insight Guides

Perfect day itineraries and top travel tips in a pocket-sized package.

Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering fun and interesting things to do and see in Sydney, from top tourist attractions like Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Bondi Beach and Sydney Harbour Bridge, to hidden gems, including Marble Bar and Elizabeth Bay House.

Compact, concise and packed with essential information about Where to Go and What to Do, this is an ideal on-the-move pocket travel guide when you're exploring Sydney.

- Cultural: delve into the city's rich heritage and get to know its modern-day life and people
- Inspirational: discover where to go and what to do, highlighted with stunning photography
- Practical: get around with ease with a free pull-out map featuring key attractions
- Informative: plan your visit with an A to Z of advice on everything from transport to tipping
- Inventive design makes for an engaging, easy-reading experience
- Covers: Sydney Harbour, Harbourside attractions, Central Sydney, Darling Harbour, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West Suburbs, Western Suburbs, The Beaches and excursions from Sydney  

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Insight Guides
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781839050961

Insight Guides

Pictorial travel guide to Arizona & the Grand Canyon with a free eBook provides all you need for every step of your journey. With in-depth features on culture and history, stunning colour photography and handy maps, it’s perfect for inspiration and finding out when to go to Arizona & the Grand Canyon and what to see in Arizona & the Grand Canyon. 

Book preview

How To Use This E-Book

Getting Around the e-Book

This Pocket Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration and planning advice for your visit to Sydney, and is also the perfect on-the-ground companion for your trip.

The guide begins with our selection of Top 10 Attractions, plus a Perfect Itinerary feature to help you plan unmissable experiences. The Introduction and History chapters paint a vivid cultural portrait of Sydney, and the Where to Go chapter gives a complete guide to all the sights worth visiting. You will find ideas for activities in the What to Do section, while the Eating Out chapter describes the local cuisine and gives listings of the best restaurants. The Travel Tips offer practical information to help you plan your trip. Finally, there are carefully selected hotel listings.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Sydney are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map], tap once to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

You’ll find lots of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Sydney. Simply double-tap an image to see it in full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years’ experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors, whose expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. Each destination is carefully researched by regional experts to ensure our guides provide the very latest information. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide you to the best places to eat, go out and shop, so you can be confident that when we say a place is special, we really mean it.

© 2019 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

Table of Contents

Sydney’s Top 10 Attractions

Top Attraction #1

Top Attraction #2

Top Attraction #3

Top Attraction #4

Top Attraction #5

Top Attraction #6

Top Attraction #7

Top Attraction #8

Top Attraction #9

Top Attraction #10

A Perfect Day In Sydney

Introduction

Diverse cityscape

The outdoor life

Sydneysiders

A Brief History

Dreamtime echoes

Colonists in chains

Rum legacy

Macquarie’s vision

The gold rush

A nation emerges

The iron lung

A world city

Historical landmarks

Where To Go

Sydney Harbour

Harbour highlights

Harbourside attractions

Circular Quay and The Rocks

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Royal Botanic Gardens

Central Sydney

George, Pitt and Market streets

Macquarie’s Sydney

Darling Harbour

Where to eat and shop

Main attractions

Eastern Suburbs

Kings Cross

Paddington

Centennial Park

Inner west Suburbs

Newtown

Balmain

Leichhardt

Western Suburbs

Parramatta

Sydney Olympic Park

Featherdale Wildlife Park

The beaches

Bondi Beach

Vaucluse and South Head

Manly

Northern Beaches

Excursions from Sydney

Blue Mountains

Jenolan Caves

Hunter Valley

Hawkesbury River

Southern Highlands

Canberra

What To Do

Shopping

Where to shop

What to buy

Sports

Participatory sports

Spectator sports

Entertainment

Mardi Gras

Sydney Festival

Nightlife

Children’s Sydney

Calendar of events

Eating Out

What to eat and drink

Bush tucker

Australian wines

The amber nectar

Where to eat

Sydney Fish Market

Restaurants

The Rocks and Circular Quay

City Centre

Darling Harbour/Cockle Bay/Chinatown

Eastern Suburbs

Inner West

The Beaches

Bondi

Manly

Watsons Bay

A–Z Travel Tips

A

Accommodation (see also Camping and Youth hostels)

Airports

B

Bicycle rental

Budgeting for your trip

C

Camping

Car hire

Climate

Clothing

Crime and safety

D

Disabled travellers

Driving

E

Electricity

Embassies and consulates

Emergencies

G

Getting there

Guides and tours

H

Health and medical care

L

Language

LGBTQ travellers

M

Maps

Media

Money

O

Opening times

P

Police

Post offices

Public holidays

T

Telephone

Time zones

Tipping

Toilets

Tourist information

Transport

V

Visa and entry requirements

W

Websites and internet access

Y

Youth hostels

Recommended Hotels

The Rocks and Circular Quay

City Centre

Darling Harbour

Eastern Suburbs

The beaches

Bondi

Manly

Sydney’s Top 10 Attractions

Top Attraction #1

Tourism New South Wales

Sydney’s glorious harbour

Venture out onto the water to explore the harbour. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #2

Glyn Genin/Apa Publications

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Great displays of international, Aboriginal and modern Australian art. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #3

Shutterstock

Sydney Harbour Bridge

An elegant work of art in grey steel. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #4

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium

Where the Great Barrier Reef comes to the city. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #5

Tourism New South Wales

Sydney Opera House

With its billowing sails and harbour setting, it’s an architectural triumph. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #6

Shutterstock

Taronga Zoo

Among the inmates are koalas and kangaroos. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #7

Shutterstock

Royal Botanic Gardens

Lush and peaceful, with great harbour views. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #8

iStock

Blue Mountains

Wilderness on the city’s doorstep. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #9

Shutterstock

The Rocks

The maritime-flavoured, historic heart of Sydney. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #10

Shutterstock

Bondi Beach

Not far from the city centre is Sydney’s favourite ocean playground. For more information, click here.

A Perfect Day In Sydney

8.00am

Breakfast

Start your day with breakfast in The Rocks or Circular Quay. Try La Renaissance Café Patisserie on Argyle Street, City Extra or Rossini on the Quay, or Pancakes on the Rocks on Hickson Road.

9.30am

Meet a koala

Hop on a ferry and cruise to Darling Harbour. At Sydney Wildlife World, you’ll meet Australia’s iconic animals, including koalas, wallabies, wombats and crocodiles.

11.30am

Shopping

Sydney is a great place to shop. The Queen Victoria Building may be the most beautiful shopping arcade in the world.

1.30pm

Honour in Hyde Park

Stroll down Park Street to Hyde Park. Visit the moving Anzac Memorial to the country’s fallen servicemen and women. At the other end of the park, the Archibald Fountain is an Art Deco delight.

2.30pm

The Barracks

Opposite the fountain on Macquarie Street is the Hyde Park Barracks. It once housed prisoners, orphans and destitute women in Sydney’s early years. The exhibits illustrate the grim conditions and how the survivors built the country.

3.30pm

Great views

Cross back to Archibald Fountain, then turn right onto Market Street and the Sydney Tower Eye. From the observation deck (more than twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge), you can see the Blue Mountains.

5.00pm

Art stroll

Take a short cab ride to Walsh Bay. Once a busy warehouse and dock area, it’s the centre of Sydney’s performing arts world. The Sculpture Walk features six head-turning sculptures. Relax with a drink at a waterside café as the sun sets. The area is currently undergoing a phased redevelopment to create a public arts and cultural hub.

6.30pm

Dinner and a show

After a pre-theatre dinner, take in a show at the Opera House which is ‘around the corner’. Other than the main theatre there are also performances in the Drama Theatre and Playhouse.

10.30pm

On the town

Drink at one of the oldest pubs in Sydney. The Hero of Waterloo on George Street and the Lord Nelson Brewery both claim the title. Then view the city by night from Blu Bar on 36, atop the Shangri-La Hotel in The Rocks.

Introduction

Sunny, surf-fringed Sydney seems custom-built for outdoor enjoyment. Bold, bright and alluring, the city glows with instant sensuous appeal, from the grey-green, eucalyptus-filled valleys on the city’s outskirts to the terracotta-tiled roofs and swimming pools of the urban landscape.

The city’s glorious harbour, stretching about 20km (121⁄2miles) inland from the Pacific Ocean to the east, is its dominant feature, and was what induced the commanders of the first convict fleet to make their settlement here. The city is now a sprawling metropolis extending more than 40km (25 miles) west, 20km (12 miles) south and 15km (9miles) north of the harbour. The urban area is surrounded on all sides by vast national parks, most notably the Blue Mountains National Park to the west.

Just over 5 million people, a fifth of Australia’s population, live in Sydney and it is regularly ranked as one of the world’s