A little bit of information about Sydney before I go into details.
This is what comes up on Google when you search for Sydney:
I'm not sure how large this will come out on your screen, but the little area near the coast that says Sydney is where we are living. To be more specific we live in the Central Business District, or CBD, within Sydney City. The rest of the area are a bunch of suburbs- similar to the way that you would call Kendall part of Miami or Brandon part of Tampa to people that are not familiar with the area. So when I say Sydney City I am talking about the downtown areas near the CBD. In the future I will be using the actual suburb name for the location we are visiting.
On our first Saturday in Sydney we participated in a free walking tour that took place mostly in the CBD. We had no idea what it would be like because typically when you hear free you think bad. It turned out to be a really amazing time.
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| Waiting to begin |
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| More waiting. High five for you if you can find Cory |
There were enough people that the guides split the group in two and then we were off! We walked about 10 yards and then looked at these two buildings that we were standing in between.
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| Town Hall |
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| St. Andrew's Cathedral |
Fun fact- St. Andrew's Cathedral is now backwards to the road. The way the picture is facing used to be towards the main road in the city. Now it is closed off and one of the main roads runs on the opposite side of the building.
From here, we set off towards the Queen Victoria Building or QVB (yes, another acronym frequently used).
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| Facing north |
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Isn't it so pretty? Cory thinks I like it just because it is old.
He could be right |
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| Queen Victoria's dog |
Basically, the Queen Victoria is a really old building. There are some unique things that happen in this building but I need pictures so I'm saving it for another time. Outside of the building there is the cool statue of Queen Victoria's dog. He speaks! When you walk up close he will talk and ask you to throw some money in the pool. A cool fact that our guide shared is that the plaques on either side of him have a caption in several languages but most of them are incorrect.
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| St. Mary's Cathedral, Hyde Park |
From the QVB, we headed a few city blocks away to Hyde Park. (They named a lot of things in this city after their UK counterparts.) St. Mary's Cathedral is an old church that took the city many, many years to build. According to our tour guide, they finally finished it because the 2000 Olympics were coming to Sydney.
We heard a story about General Macquarie. He is a
very important person in Sydney. They have named many things after him- streets, buildings, companies, etc. I don't want to ruin the mystery for everyone, so I will show you some fun pictures instead.
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| This is a statue of him commissioned by the city |
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| This is what he actually looked like |
We visited an area that used to house many of the colonists. Remember that Australia started off as a penal colony, so many of the people that stayed in this area were convicts. They were guaranteed shelter and food if they worked for a certain number of hours per day. Now this area is just a museum.
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| Hyde Park Barracks |
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| Rubbing the nose for good luck |
There was a random re-creation of the Boar of Florence, or Porcellino, because the architect for the hospital was a fan of Italian architecture. Just like the one in Italy, you can see the areas that people touch the most due to the bright gold coloring.
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| Reserve Bank of Australia- Because Cory is an Accountant |
We stopped by the Reserve Bank of Australia. The cool thing about this place is that they make money for about 20 other countries due to the unique features they have in their paper/plastic money.
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| Old Post Office |
Cool thing about this building: they took the clock spire down during WWII because it used to signify the city center. It was moved to another building and then apparently everyone forgot that they moved it. They didn't realize it was missing for a couple of decades and it was finally moved it back onto the original building.
Down a random alley there are a bunch of bird cages. They are supposed to represent all of the birds that are indigenous to the area. As you walk through the alley your motion triggers the "bird songs" to start playing.
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| 'Waiting'. There are counterparts to this "piece of art" throughout the world. |
We finally arrived at some of the older parts of the city.
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| Some sort of statue proclaiming the relationship between Australia and I think the UK? |
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This is Sydney's first cannon used to protect the city.
There was no backup. |
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| Anchor from Captain Cook's ship |
Circular Quay (pronounced as 'Key') is the major wharf for ferries and includes the Opera House and The Rocks within the Harbour area.
There are a lot of Harbours/Wharves within the Sydney boundaries (I showed you some of Darling Harbour/King Street Wharf
near the end of this post) and this is the busiest one, which of course means I don't have a picture of it because I was afraid of being run over by someone else.
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Indigenous Australian Pine (not like the ones back home) thought to have become extinct.
Apparently some people want to re-brand it as the Australian Christmas tree |
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| Sydney's Oldest standing House |
We were coming to the end of our tour at this point. We ended up at a point of the Harbour in The Rocks, which is the oldest settlement part of the city. I apparently have no pictures of this area so I will go take some and tell you the fun stories about this area.
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| My first clear view of the Opera House! |
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| Closer view across the Harbour |
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