Sydney zing!

Sydney Zing!

The morning arrivals into new ports are exciting because when you open your eyes there is a whole new world to see and explore. Sydney adds lots of Zing! to the eye opening.

The iconic Opera House was the first thing we saw when we opened our eyes. The Circular Quay, where we were docked, is between the Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. We could see the Contemporary Art Museum (yay!) directly ahead, as were restaurants, ferries (which run everywhere throughout the harbor) and shops, outdoor art installations and more.

Sydney is a city with the energy of New York even more splendid grace than San Francisco. This is a city filled with young people and families, commerce and fun. Here again, though, we heard about the Chinese influx. It is a universal theme in this area of the world.

One of the tough parts of cruising is the small amount of time you actually get in any one place. In Sydney we opted for a water tour that would allow us to see as much as possible in our limited time available.

Definitely make sure you take a harbor tour if you make it here! This is the most beautiful and dramatic of the harbors we have seen so far. It stretches out for miles and is accessible by ferry almost everywhere. Our tour showed us the homes, commercial and iconic buildings and different parts of the city on islands and area that make up Sydney. We watched the changing lifestyles and cityscapes while eating lunch. We learned about the history of the settlement of Sydney, crazy stories of criminal escapes and captures, and other tidbits.

We did make it to the museum, too, which had a section devoted to aboriginal art. Fascinating. We also had a great Chinese dum sum dinner. It is always a treat to have non-ship food!!!!!

My regret: it is possible to climb the Sydney Bridge. I didn’t, this time but it is on my bucket list!