Places to visit in and around the City of Sydney

When you follow the 90 metre rainbow path in Prince Alfred Park you’re not just experiencing a cheerful addition to the neighbourhood – you’re seeing a bold representation of Australia’s journey towards equality for LGBTIQ people and the ongoing struggle against discrimination.

Cutting through the central lawn, officially named ‘Equality Green’, the rainbow path commemorates the spot where many gathered to hear the results of the national same-sex marriage postal survey in November 2017. When the results of the vote were announced in favour of marriage equality for LGBTIQ people, the 30,000-strong crowd erupted in relief and jubilation.

Beyond Equality Green, there is much to enjoy at Prince Alfred Park: 2 playgrounds, an enclosed toddlers’ playground and an open play space adjacent to basketball courts. You can also access free sports courts and fitness equipment.

Prince Alfred Park Pool is open 6am to 7pm weekdays and 7am to 7pm weekends. Adult entry is $7.05 and a family entry $19.90.

Harold Park and the Tramsheds, in Forest Lodge, offer something for everyone. From a vast green space, you can marvel at the heritage significance of the fully restored Tramsheds.

This was once one of the busiest areas of Sydney, where the Rozelle tram depot employed up to 650 people, and the next door Harold Park Paceway, home of the NSW Trotting Club, attracted tens of thousands to night racing.

Today, with the closure of both the tram depot and the paceway, these 2 historic areas are the foundation for a completely renewed place.

The Tramsheds are a unique architectural gem and the inner west’s home of flavour, culture, people and ideas. Harold Park is a 3.8 hectare green space where you can link through to other parks and Glebe’s foreshore, or enjoy an extensive playground with picnic areas, public art and a wildlife corridor.

The water tower from the original tram depot has also been conserved in the park. The park also features an extensive stormwater harvesting and treatment scheme that, with local planting, attracts birds, lizards, bees and other insects.

Cloud Nation is a repurposed vintage aeroplane, where you can view a miniature world on its wings. Suspended inside Green Square library, you can take in plenty of the art’s aspects either through the library windows or cleverly positioned monoculars.

This mini-world on the body of the plane was created by artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. Their work explores fictional narratives, migration and the cultural exchange made possible by air travel. When you view these from both above and below, you’ll see that the multiple perspectives mirror the diverse perspectives and experiences of migrants.

Cloud Nation sits at the heart of Green Square Library, which is almost a piece of art in itself. Its striking design, by architects Stewart Hollenstein with Stewart Architecture, has won a number of awards. When you’re approaching you’ll see the library’s triangular tower - a landmark entry that then reveals an underground open plan library space.

You can grab a drink at the café, spend quiet time in a subterranean garden, or browse through a collection of more than 40,000 books, CDs, DVDs, magazines and newspapers. There’s also a technology lab, music room with piano for practice and rehearsals, community and meeting rooms, and a dedicated children’s area to discover.

The library is open Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm and weekends 10am – 4pm. Membership is free.

Enter Customs House and look down – here you’ll see an incredible scale model of Sydney CBD under glass.

The model depicts an epic 10 square kilometre of the city centre – and the model is upgraded every year, just as the city itself is always changing. Just as you do in the real city aboveground, you’ll get a completely different perspective if you visit the model at night, where it comes alive with hundreds of fibre-optic lights illuminating the streets.

Look out for the Aboriginal flags that mark sites of Aboriginal historical significance. The dual names of the points and bays will help you to learn the Gadigal placenames.

And once you’ve wondered at the model, look up: Customs House is one of Sydney’s iconic heritage buildings, and is open to everyone to explore and enjoy. It is home to a city library branch on levels 1 and 2, and presents exhibitions across 3 levels. With unexpected views of the Harbour Bridge, its library reading room is a Sydney secret you won’t want to share.

Free WiFi is available for use and public computers are also available. You can visit Customs House weekdays 8am – 10:30pm, Saturdays 9am – 10:30pm and Sundays 9am-5pm.

Be careful not to miss the diamond-shaped slate memorial set modestly into the pavement outside the entrance to the lower Town Hall in Druitt Street. The hand-carved inscription commemorates the Old Sydney Burial Ground, Sydney’s first official cemetery.

The cemetery was built in 1792, and accommodated around 2,000 convicts and free people until it became full and closed in 1820. While some vaults and graves were opened, with remains and sepulchre deposited in a new burial ground, high brick walls were built to protect the old cemetery. Within time, many headstones were vandalised and stray pigs, goats and horses wandered among the graves, many of which lay open.

The site was turned over for the town hall in 1869, and the regular discoveries of graves in the many years since have made it clear that the exhumations were very basic. In 2003, graves were discovered during building works creating the new forecourt area.

The archaeological remains aren’t open to the public, but you can be mindful of this past, take in the intricate carving of Sydney Town Hall or enter the magnificent vestibule, regarded as one of the most significant Victorian interiors in Australia.  Sydney Town Hall is open 8am – 6pm weekdays.

Spend some time in the northern end of Sydney’s renowned Hyde Park to discover the modest John Baptist Fountain. First established as an ornamental feature within the Baptist Garden and Nursey on Bourke Road, Redfern, the sandstone fountain was donated by the Baptist family and erected in Hyde Park in 1888.

You’ll see a sandstone centrepiece of coral with 3 carp on top that support a clamshell basin on their tails. The large ground basin with stone sides makes a perfect spot to perch and take a break from city life within Australia’s oldest park.

Hyde Park is an exemplar of public open space, dedicated in 1810 and acting as a welcome green oasis ever since. It may also be the site of an Aboriginal ceremonial contest ground; although the exact location of this site of ritualised conflict settlement and resistance is unclear, it is probably near Hyde Park South.

Admire the dramatic art deco features at each end of Hyde Park - the Archibald Fountain in the north and the ANZAC Memorial in the south – or explore the various memorials, sculptures and fountains, and quiet spaces for picnics and relaxing.

Major restoration and landscaping has created the Paddington Reservoir Gardens from within the structure of the State Heritage-listed Paddington Reservoir.

Visit this unique public space to enjoy immaculate gardens, a boardwalk, lighting and furniture, with plenty of places to sit and rest in the beautiful sunken garden.

The gardens take up two levels of what was once the Paddington water reservoir – a vital part of Sydney’s water supply system that was decommissioned in 1899. The space was used for storage, a motor garage and petrol station, yet these various uses ended in 1990 when the roof collapsed.

You can visit the street level at all times, although the lower chambers, accessible by an elevator and stairs, are only open during daylight hours.

You can explore much of the reservoir’s original framework, with the restoration salvaging much of the original brick, timber and iron fixtures. This is a mix of contemporary, industrial design with the beauty of a calm open space, which won the prestigious Australian Award for Urban Design in 2009.

Tar-Ra/Dawes Point peninsula, one of several bays and points with dual naming in the City of Sydney, is a wonderful place for you to wander, explore, lounge or picnic while enjoying panoramic views of Sydney Harbour.

The site is of great significance to Aboriginal people – it offers sightlines along and connection to the harbour and sandstone outcrops. It is said that Aboriginal people used the large flat rocks at the tip of the peninsula to cook fish and these same rocks also contained Aboriginal rock engravings. We believe surviving engravings around the Sydney basin area date between 5,000 and 200 years old and continue to hold deep significance to Aboriginal people living in Sydney today.

It’s also significant for its connections to what many consider the first dictionary of the local Aboriginal language – this is where Lieutenant William Dawes, with the help of a young Aboriginal woman called Patyegarang, compiled the most extensive record of the original language spoken by Aboriginal people at Sydney.

You can also discover the archaeological interpretation of Dawes’ Observatory, remnants of a military battery (part of the harbour’s 19th century defences), cannons, a guard house, officers’ quarters and underground store rooms at the former Dawes Point Battery.

Heaven is a suspended disc with fibre optic strands laced through a metal frame, located at the intersection of Dixon and Little Hay streets in the heart of Chinatown. It sits within the glow of the Dixon Street Light Screens, panels of polycarbonate light strips suspended across Dixon Street.

Lit from 6pm to midnight each night, Heaven’s larger fibre light strands change colour each hour, while the smaller fibre strands change every 10 minutes. You’ll see the morphing of colours from purple to blue, green, yellow, orange and red, while the Dixon Street Light Screens gradually change from orange to red. Be there at the stroke of midnight, to see both artworks glow bright red.

Nearby, see the murals and illuminated ‘spirit’ figures of In Between Two Worlds’, where artist Jason Wing references motifs from his Chinese and Aboriginal culture.

Sydney’s Chinatown is a wonderful place to spend time and to take in the history of an area that has been around since the 1850s, changing locations a few times before establishing itself to today’s location.

Its proximity to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market on Hay Street attracted many Chinese people to set up cook shops and lodging houses along Dixon Street to cater for the suburban Chinese market gardeners who came to the city to sell their produce.