Sydney

About Sydney

Sydney is Australia's largest city and a major Pacific cruise homeport, with ships docking at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Circular Quay (walking distance from the Opera House and Harbour Bridge) or at White Bay 15 minutes west. The Quay berth is one of the world's most dramatic arrivals. The Rocks district, Bondi Beach, Taronga Zoo, and Manly Beach fill typical days ashore. SYD airport is 20 minutes south.

• Sydney Harbour is one of the world's largest natural harbours, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge — opened in 1932 — was the world's widest long-span bridge for many decades, earning the affectionate local nickname 'the Coathanger'.
• Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics, widely regarded as one of the best-organised Games in history, which transformed the city's infrastructure and boosted global tourism.
• The iconic Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, took 14 years to build (1959–1973) and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site — Utzon controversially resigned mid-construction and never saw the finished building.
• Indigenous peoples (the Gadigal people of the Eora nation) have inhabited the Sydney area for at least 30,000 years before European settlement — one of the longest continuous human habitations on Earth.
• Sydney is Australia's most populous city with about 5.3 million people, yet it is not the national capital — that honour belongs to Canberra, which was purpose-built partly because Sydney and Melbourne couldn't agree on which should be the capital.