Sydney for first-time visitors

Must-see attractions

Sydney wears its weather and its weight on the outside, and the must-see list below favours places where you can still read the nineteenth century in stone and timber. Twelve sites, in rank order, mostly churches — Uniting, Anglican, Catholic, the Sydney diocesan ones and the parish ones — plus a heritage convict barracks on the harbour and a war-memorial fountain. This is not the Opera House list. The harbour postcards have their own gravity, and you can do them in an afternoon; what follows is for the second day in town, the visitor who wants the city to mean something specific instead of something general. Some sites are central — Macquarie Street, The Rocks — and others ask for a ferry or a tram out to Neutral Bay, Surry Hills, Newtown, or Five Dock. Bring quiet shoes. Look up at the ceilings. The signage on the ground will tell you what year a window went in or who the architect was; the prose below will not pretend to know what the public record does not say.