Highlights: English-speaking guide City tour Blue Mountains & Wildlife Park Great Ocean Road Apostle National Park & Twelve Aspotles Flora & Fauna
What you get
Sydney - a modern city with one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Opera House - is a remarkably easy city to move around in. An excellent train, bus and ferry service covers all points of the greater metropolitan area. Roadways, although congested in peak hour times, are generally well planned and driving is not too harrowing an experience.
Unless visitors to Sydney are specifically seeking out friends in outlying areas, most will have no real need to travel too far away from the central city area and the harbour. Most Sydney tourist attractions are either within the central business district, close to the CBD, or at points around the harbour. The exceptions are Bondi and Manly - surf beach suburbs situated south and north of Sydney Heads.
If you've only got a week or a few days in Sydney, your time would be best spent by taking a walk around the wider CBD area, visiting The Rocks or spending time on the harbour. The harbour is Sydney and on a warm day, with a clear blue sky, there is no better place on earth.
MELBOURNE
Melbourne is the second-largest city in Australia and the capital of the state of Victoria and is built on a coastal plain at the top of the giant horseshoe shaped Port Phillip Bay, which also serves as the mouth of the mighty Yarra River.
Melbourne's features include Victorian-era architecture, elegant streetscapes, bounteous cultural institutions museums, art galleries, theatres and spaciously landscaped parks and gardens. Its 3.5 million population is multicultural and entirely sports-mad.
There is a lively passion for social eating and drinking, which is reflected in the thousands of restaurants serving up gastronomic experiences from around the world. Everywhere you look you will uncover a vast array of fashionable cafes, where you can enjoy Melbourne's existential coffee culture to the fullest.
Some of Australia's best shopping and nightlife resides in Melbourne. Whether you are searching for haute couture or vintage clothing, sparkling chardonnay, über-chic bars, clubs or jazz venues, you won't be disappointed.
Add in an efficient transit system and a packed events calendar and get one of the most enlightened and liveable cities in the world.
