St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney Tower, Museum of Sydney

When I checked the Sydney, Australia weather at about 7:30 this morning, it was already 22°C. By 9:00, it was 25°. The forecast high was 35. For those of you not familiar with the Celsius scale, that translates to “you don’t want to be away from air conditioning for long unless you’re a masochist” on the Fahrenheit scale.

I decided to look for indoor activities that didn’t involve a lot of outdoor walking today. In the morning that included St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney Tower, and the Museum of Sydney.

I decided to start with St. Mary’s Cathedral because I set out a little before 9:30 a.m. and the other two attractions on the itinerary I chose for this morning, none of which are especially far from my hotel, open at 10:00. The cathedral opened earlier.

St. Mary’s Cathedral is just across the street from Hyde Park. The walking route provided by Google Maps took me through the park.

Hyde Park

I know what you’re thinking. Before you ask with galactic levels of snark in your voice, no, I wasn’t teleported to London, England. Sydney, Australia has a Hyde Park too.

The park is a relaxing oasis in downtown Sydney. Trees on either side of a wide promenade form a lush canopy over it. Lawns, other trees, and flowers augment the calming effect. A dramatic fountain with sculptures stands at the center of the park.

The park also provides an excellent view of the Sydney Tower, which I visited later in the morning.

I would have spent more time enjoying the park, but it was already too damned hot and humid to relax. Outdoors today is more about melting into a puddle of protoplasm than relaxing. I exaggerate. There are hotter places in the world. But I don’t want to be in any of those places when they experience that heat.

So I quickly moved on to the Cathedral next door.

St. Mary’s Cathedral

I mentioned that I chose to visit St. Mary’s Cathedral first primarily because it opened earlier. It doesn’t just open a little earlier. It opens at 6:30 in the morning. I would have gotten up and gone there that early, but that’s a grievously irreverent, totally ungodly hour, so I thought it would be disrespectful to go there then. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The foundation stone for St. Mary’s Cathedral was laid in 1822, but the original simple structure didn’t open until 1835. A fire destroyed it in 1865 and the current cathedral, built in a Gothic Revival style, opened in 1882, but it wasn’t completed in its current form until 1928.

The cathedral is beautiful inside and out. Particularly the interior.

The high arched ceiling and columns create a dramatic effect that’s enhanced by yellow-amber lighting that highlights the upper reaches of the columns and arches above them.

About a dozen beautiful stained glass windows line each side of the cathedral, high up on the walls. Another, bigger stained glass window sits in the wall behind the altar.

Signs throughout the cathedral forbid taking pictures during masses. Fortunately, there was no service happening when I was there, hence the accompanying photographs.

Sydney Tower

As best I can tell from my guidebooks and the tower’s website, the tower is called the “Sydney Tower,” but its observation deck is called the “Sydney Tower Eye.” However, the Eye might include the restaurant on the levels below the observation deck. I don’t know.

I didn’t visit the restaurant. The timing wasn’t right for a meal. I think there are separate elevators for the restaurant. I saw a sign for it at the base of the tower, but none on the observation deck.

The base of the Sydney Tower is a large, five-level shopping mall called Westfield. Shops include the likes of Prada, Gucci, Versace, Chanel, Ferragamo and others of that ilk. But there are also stores that people of the middle-income persuasion can shop at without melting their credit cards. (There seems to be a lot of money in Sydney. The streets surrounding the mall also had a lot of stores geared to wealthy people.)

The elevator to the observation deck of the Sydney Tower leaves from the fifth floor of the mall. It’s only two stops are there and the observation deck.

The views from the observation deck, through floor-to-ceiling windows around the circular deck, are amazing.

Sydney is truly a knockout city. It doesn’t have the mountains of, say Vancouver, but it has lots of water—a large harbour, with lots of little long finger offshoots, bays and coves, and the Parramatta River—and some dazzling architecture. It’s all visible in a 360° series of vistas from 250 metres (820 feet) above ground level.

The Sydney Tower Eye has a “Skywalk” experience that’s available for an extra fee. The experience involves spending 45 minutes walking on an outside catwalk above the observation deck and standing on a glass-floored platform. I would have done it, but it was far too hot to be outside. That and my heart is still palpitating after experiencing The Edge at the Melbourne SkyDeck about a week ago. I have no desire to find out how difficult it is to make a claim on my travel health insurance—or, much more likely, die instantly—when my heart bursts as a result of another such activity.

The Museum of Sydney

The Museum of Sydney is a small museum built on the original site of Government House, the old home of the Governor of New South Wales, the state of which Sydney is the capital. The Government House, built in 1788, is long since gone. It was abandoned and later demolished when it fell into disrepair and became too expensive to renovate and keep up.

Archaeologists found the foundations of the old building. The museum was constructed on the site.

When I was there, a temporary exhibit on the Sydney Opera House in honour of its 50th anniversary this year (2023) occupied probably about half of what, as I said, is a small museum. The exhibit provided facts and figures about the opera house, some photographs and posters, and a few mannequins wearing costumes from some productions.

In addition, a Lego model recreated a cross-section of the Sydney Opera House.

There was also a room titled “The Maestro.” The front of the room was a large curved screen. Some shapes and lines danced around on the screen and some music—a pleasant series of tones—played on a speaker system.

Two spots were marked on the floor just in front of the screen. People could stand on either of the spots (or two people could occupy both) and wave their arms as if they were conducting an orchestra. That movement changed the music played on the speakers and the shapes and lines appearing on the screen.

I tried it. It was cool. But I’m easily amused.

There isn’t a lot of room in the museum for much else. I saw some models of the sailing ships that brought immigrants, particularly convicts, to Australia. There was also a small theatre playing an apparently long video. When I poked my head in, all of its few seats were full. I looked at some more exhibits and popped back in. The video was still playing and the seats were still full. I gave up, so I don’t know the subject or length of the video.

Lunch

I had two requirements for lunch: The restaurant had to be close to the Museum of Sydney so I didn’t have to walk far in the brutal heat and it had to have an indoor, air-conditioned table for me. I found one a two-minute walk from the museum that Google rated highly. I went there.

They had no tables available, but I could eat at the bar. I hate eating at a bar counter, particularly when my legs have to dangle off a high stool, such as they would there. I said no. They said their other restaurant upstairs, which offers Italian/Asian fusion fare, might have a table for me. It did.

The restaurant was more expensive than I tend to spend on lunch, but it was delicious. For starters, I had half a small cucumber (sliced lengthwise) with something delicious and crunchy (I forget what) on top of it and a scallop with caviar on top. Yummy.

My main was snapper and a side salad. Both were also yummy.

To wash it down, I had a glass of wine. Yummy too.

And so ended my mostly indoor morning. To be followed by a mostly indoor afternoon, but that’s for later.