Sydney

Sydney owns the most theatrical harbour on Earth and knows it: the Opera House spreads its white sails on one point, the Harbour Bridge — 'the Coathanger,' arched in 1932 — carries trains, climbers and fireworks across the narrows, and between them a working opera of ferries, sailboats and container ships plays continuously to a shoreline of coves, botanic gardens and beaches. The city began at The Rocks in 1788 as a penal colony; it has been apologizing to nobody ever since.

The traveller rides ferries as a way of life — Manly outbound past the heads is the country's best ticket —; walks the Rocks' lanes and the botanic gardens to the Opera's steps; climbs the bridge or just its pylon lookout; swims Bondi at morning and does the clifftop walk to Coogee; eats across the harvest of a hundred cuisines that call the city home; and keeps one day for the Blue Mountains' eucalyptus haze, ninety minutes inland by train.

The Guide's practical counsel: the sun here is a professional — hat, cream and shade are not suggestions between October and March —; swim between the flags at ocean beaches, where the lifeguards' word is law; the Opal transit card runs trains, buses and every ferry; whale season (May to November) turns any headland into a theater; and the city rewards walkers absurdly — most of its wonders line the water, and the water is never far.