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Sydney
Sydney, the capital of New South Wales,
is Australia's largest and most famous city and well known for
its landmarks; the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach,
and as the venue for the 2000 Olympics, the annual Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras, and the Newyears Eve fireworks from the bridge.
The city offers a huge range of attractions to the many visitors
that land here each year and even has excellent beaches, most
famous of them all Bondi and Manly. Also it has a few National
Parks bordering the city so if you want to escape the city the
bush is never more than an hour or so away.
To the west of the city lie the Blue Mountains and a little further
inland you will find the Hunter Valley, famous for its wine growing
and tasting.
Sydney offers something of interest to everyone, from history
to a bustling nightlife to nature based activities and general
sight-seeing.
The Sydney Opera House, one of Australia's most famous landmarks
Sydney started out as a colony of prisoners in
1788 when Arthur Philip landed at Sydney Cove with a few hundred
prisoners and has since grown into a sprawling metropolis of around
4 million people.
The current location of Sydney was an improvisation by Arthur
Philip, his instructions had been to set up a penal colony with
his prisoners in Botany Bay, an inlet a bit to the south, chosen
by James Cook but as he deemed this one unsuitable sailed a bit
further up the coast until he reached what was then known as Port
Jackson.
At the time there were about 3000 Aborigines living around the
area and it took only a few months for the first Aborigine to
be killed, soon to be followed by the spearing of two convicts
at Rushcutters Bay.
A goldrush hit Sydney in 1851 and people left the city in droves,
in the following years thousands of gold seekers from all over
the world passed through Sydney to try their luck on the gold
fields.
Nowadays Sydney has spread all around the huge natural
harbour, the northern and southern side connected with a bridge
and a tunnel. Many people also use the ferries that leave from
Circular Quay to the north shore.
Sydney is also the second best place to lose your passport in
Australia, here you will find almost as many consulates as in
Canberra.
It must be a good life in Sydney, the London based
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s survey in 2005 ranks Sydney
nr. 7 out of 130 cities surveyed worldwide. The EIU assessed the
level of hardship for expatriates in the 130 cities, using 12
factors including housing, education, recreational activities,
health, climate and terrorism.
Two of the most famous landmarks together in one shot;
The Opera House and the harbour bridge
A visit to Sydney simply can not be completer without
a visit to the Opera House, Sydney's most famous landmark. It
has an interesting history; a design competition in 1955 produced
233 entries but it was Danish architect Joern Utzon who won the
job though he never finished it as he quit in 1966.
He had run into huge arguments with the builders who had considerable
trouble to convert his ideas from a design on paper in to the
real thing, and he was pushed out by Sir Davis Hughes who downgraded
his role in the project and with held payment of his fees.
Construction took far more time and money than expected and ran
from 1959 till 1973 when it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth
II . The original $7 million budget had blown out to a whopping
$102 million and a team of Aussie architects were left to finish
the interior design after Utzon quit, by then it was realized
that though it looks nice from the outside it is a bit cramped
inside.
In June 2007 the Opera House gained World Heritage Listing, joining
more than 800 other sites including the Taj Mahal, the Statue
of Liberty, the Great Wall of China and Egypt's pyramids.
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