Greetings From Sydney

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View From The Royal Botanic Garden

We arrived in Sydney, Australia around 8:30 am and waited to deplane.  It takes awhile when you have a full Boeing 787 jumbo jet.  By the time we went thru customs, got our luggage and went thru the final customs checkpoint, it was almost 10:30 am. 

We had prearranged shuttle transfer from the airport to our hotel in Sydney.  Unfortunately we had just missed one shuttle and would have to wait for about 45 minutes or so for the driver to return.

We weren't in a hurry so it didn't really matter to us, but our advice to you if you don't want to be waiting around, is to call an Uber instead.

By the time we got to our hotel, Intercontinental Sydney, it was almost noon.  The first thing on our mind was food, so we headed out to explore the neighborhood.   There was an interactive directory on the corner so we plotted our house to a nearby food court.   It was a great find.   We had BBQ brisket, chips & drink for 16 AUD each.

After lunch we headed to The Royal Botanic Garden where we spent several hours walking thru the gardens.   At 3:00 we headed to the Opera House gate where we caught a Choo Choo train around the gardens.   It costs 10 AUD for adults and 5 AUD for kids.

Sydney Opera House 

The train ride takes about 40 minutes and returns to where it started at the Opera House entrance. We walked over to the Opera House stairs and asked one of the workers where we needed to go for tours. He directed us around the corner and downstairs to the ticket counter. Tours go until 5 PM, so we still had time to take the tour. The tour costs 40 AUD per person for the basic tour, which lasts for an hour.

After purchasing our tour tickets, we purchased some bottled water from their cafe and waited for our tour time.   The guide passed out audio headsets and

The Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon. The architectural marvel is perhaps one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. It has become one of the busiest performing arts centers in the world, putting Sydney on the map forever.

The behind the scenes tour was very informative.  Please not that picture taking is allowed except in designated areas which your guide will point out. We went inside two of the theaters but were not allowed to take any pictures inside. There are many diverse performances held at the Opera House - not just operas. The first stage we saw was being setup for a children's performance.

They also take your photo when you start the tour and offer a souvenir book with photo at the end of the tour. We purchased the souvenir book for another 40 AUD. There are two options, postcard or photo download. The postcards would have been another 10 AUD, so we just took the download option.

After our tour we headed back to our hotel for the evening to get some rest.  It had been a long couple of days for us.   We had left home on Wednesday and it was now 6 PM on Thursday, due to the time zone difference.   We are glad that we forced ourselves to keep going since we got a lot of our sightseeing accomplished this first day.

Additional photos can be found on our Australia & New Zealand Shutterfly page

Intercontinental Hotel Sydney
Sydney Opera House
The Royal Botanical Garden


Click on the image to the left for more Blog posts about this trip.

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