Sydney for first-time visitors

Must-see attractions

Sydney's CBD is small enough to walk and dense enough to reward the effort. This list of 12 must-see stops follows that geography. It begins at the harbour with the Opera House, then turns inland through Hyde Park, Martin Place, and the civic spine of Macquarie Street. None of these are obscure — most appear on every guide. They're here because of what they share: a downtown you walk through to get between them. Sydney does not pretend to be older than it is, and its monuments don't ask you to be reverent. Take this list as a tour of the city's civic and ecclesiastical bones, with the harbour at one end. Walk, don't drive. Allow a long morning and a quiet afternoon. Some entries here are interiors worth pausing in; others are quick stops on the way to somewhere else. The point is not to tick every box. The point is to read the downtown as a place — at foot pace, with time to actually stop.