Guide to Sydney: how to get there and where to stay, what to see and where to go in the evening. The highlights of Sydney: fresh reviews and photos, places to see, branded entertainment and shopping.

Bright cosmopolitan Sydney is like a huge patchwork. Gourmets and surfers, hedonists and backpackers – everyone will find their own Sydney: someone is a beach city, someone is a jungle of skyscrapers and the financial capital of the country. Check animalerts for mass media of Oceania, covering list of all countries in the continent.

Australia’s largest city and the capital of the state of New South Wales sits on the hills of the rugged coast of the Tasman Sea. If you stretch the coastline of its bays, harbors, bays and islands, you get almost 340 km. Sydney is the center of the East Coast, strongly connected with water. Its canonical views are from pleasure boats, but the best is from the Harbor Bridge hovering over the bay. The urban development of Greater Sydney is surrounded by a green ring of national parks. Several sections of Sydney Bay, protected as land and sea landscapes, also have the status of a national park.

Districts of Sydney

The heart of Sydney is its Central Business District on the south shore of Sydney Harbour: an amazing mixture of modern skyscrapers, pompous Victorian buildings, green oases, fashionable shops and expensive restaurants. In the western part of the area lies Darling Harbor with numerous cafes, museums, theaters and beautiful views of ships and skyscrapers.

To the north of the Central Region is the Rocks region, from which the history of modern Australia began. Once it was a real gangster hangout, but after reconstruction in the 1970s, The Rocks turned into an upscale quarter with expensive housing, the houses of the first settlers, narrow cobblestone streets and cozy pubs.

100 years ago, the King’s Cross area, located east of the center, was chosen by representatives of bohemians and criminals, who were later replaced by hippies and illegal immigrants. Today, the area has acquired respectability and, thanks to the abundance of inexpensive hotels and restaurants, is popular among tourists.

In Sydney, as in any self-respecting port city, there is a Red Light District – in the Kings Cross area.

To the south, King’s Cross is bordered by the trendy Paddington area with storefronts, one better than the other, jewelry stores, popular pubs and cozy gourmet cafes. In the struggle for the wallets of shopaholics, Paddington is successfully competed by the Newtown district, stuffed to capacity with designer boutiques and art galleries.

The most famous beach area in Sydney is Bondi Beach, located 8 km east of the center: excellent infrastructure, plenty of entertainment, surfers sliding on the waves, no glamor and crowds on weekends.

Communication and Wi-Fi

In order not to go broke on international roaming, it is better to buy a SIM card from a local mobile operator – Telstra, Optus, Vodafone or any other. The cards include 2-8 GB of mobile internet and up to 400 minutes of calls, including international calls. SIM cards are sold in branded salons of operators, at the airport, at railway stations, in supermarkets, 7/11 stores and even in souvenir shops. The purchased card must be activated on the operator’s website.

Free Wi-Fi in Sydney is no longer exotic. It can be found in museums and libraries, at stations and marinas, in restaurants, cafes, bars, fast foods. Free Wi-Fi access is available in 7 out of 10 Sydney hotels – this can be specified when booking a room.

Diving in Sydney

The underwater world of Sydney is able to surprise even experienced divers. The most daring can visit the Shark Cave, located at a depth of 17-25 m. Two-meter sharks, which are called gray nannies, mackerels and giant cuttlefish live here.

Ridged with underwater caves and overgrown with extensive coral colonies, Burrens Hut Reef is awash with marine life – striped snub-nosed fish, nicknamed “Old Wife”, get along well with moray eels, small sharks and huge blue groupers.

Near the Belambi reef is a cemetery of 11 ships that sank from 1859 to 1949. An hour’s drive from Sydney, especially for divers, at a depth of 32 m, the large warship Adelaide, launched in 1980, was sunk.

The cost of one dive with an instructor and equipment rental from 170 AUD.

One of the popular places for snorkellers is Naked Island in Botany Bay. The funniest inhabitants of the local waters are 40 cm grass sea dragons, very similar to their formidable counterparts from fairy tales.

Shopping

You can spend royally on George Street in the “Queen Victoria’s House”, which Pierre Cardin called the most luxurious shopping center in the world. Queen Victoria, however, never lived in it – before there was a concert hall, now there are boutiques of local and world brands. Everything is expensive and very beautiful. They say that it was here that the outrageous Kate Moss bought her ugg boots. It’s hardly worth leaving Sydney without these comfortable, stylish boots from Australian farmers. They are sold everywhere and regardless of the season. Gloves, bags, straps and other accessories made of kangaroo, ostrich or crocodile leather are no less tempting.

Sydney’s middle class prefer shopping on Oxford Street in Paddington or King Street in Newtown. Almost every area has its own network shopping centers Westfield Shopping Center and David Jones.

About 97% of all opals are mined in Australia, you can buy both high-quality solid stones and glued opals, the so-called doublets and triplets.

For swimwear, flip-flops and pareos, you need to go to the Palm Beach area, where the best beach boutiques are located. For souvenirs – in numerous shops, but best of all – on the Rocks Market Sunday market, where they sell things made by the Australians themselves: painted boomerangs and banksia cones, cowboy hats, didgeridoo, paintings and panels made in the dot technique of the natives. Of the edible souvenirs, honey and macadamia nuts are popular.

Cuisine and restaurants in Sydney

As in any metropolis, the full range of international cuisine is represented in Sydney. But who can resist the temptation to taste modern Australian cuisine and food prepared according to traditional Aboriginal recipes? From the abundance of dishes, eyes widen: juicy pork with sauce, roast camel meat, Australian beef steaks with a side dish of mushrooms, lamb stew with vegetables, fried chicken with crispy potatoes and eggplant.

One of the best places to cook exotic dishes from kangaroo, opossum or crocodile meat is the Sydney Tower panoramic restaurant at the top of the Sydney Tower. Cozy and inexpensive restaurants are located in the Rocks area. Here you should also look for trendy bars and the oldest pubs in the city to make sure of the excellent quality of Australian wine and beer.

You can remove the sudden surging longing for Russia with pancakes, dumplings and pickle at the Romance Russian restaurant.

Seafood lovers can recommend the Darling Harbor area, where fast food restaurants and restaurants perfectly prepare grilled shrimp with artichoke salad, fried menticirrus – a local variety of perch, barracuda in a wide variety of options, blue crab meat dishes, and also offer a local delicacy – freshwater oysters.