The Art Gallery of New South Wales began life in 1871 as the New South Wales Academy of Art, holding exhibitions and buying its first works a few years later to support living colonial artists. Its first permanent home, opened in 1880, was a freestanding gallery built for the Sydney International Exhibition; the grand sandstone building that fronts the Domain today, with its classical portico and the names of European masters carved across the facade, was completed in stages from the 1890s. That.....

Stencilled rats, riot police clutching smiley-face balloons and a girl reaching for a heart drifting out of frame are among the images that have made the anonymous British artist Banksy a household name, and Banksy Limitless gathers hundreds of them into a single immersive show. Staged at 155 George Street in the historic Rocks district, the exhibition arrived in Sydney in 2026 after a long London season, presenting reproductions, certified works, sculptures, large-scale murals and digital insta.....

On the western edge of Sydney's city centre, Darling Harbour has been transformed from a working port into one of the city's busiest leisure and entertainment precincts. Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the bay was a tangle of wharves, railway yards, warehouses and goods sheds handling much of Sydney's cargo; as shipping moved on, the area fell derelict, until a major redevelopment for the 1988 Bicentenary reinvented it as a public waterfront of promenades, parks and attracti.....

Locked in a themed room with sixty minutes on the clock, players have to hunt for clues, crack codes and solve a chain of puzzles to escape; Escape Hunt Sydney runs exactly that format from a venue on George Street in the heart of the city. Part of an international escape-room brand, it offers several different rooms, each with its own story and set design, from period mysteries to more contemporary adventures, and teams typically range from two players to larger groups who split the puzzles bet.....

Madame Tussauds Sydney brings the world's famous faces within arm's reach, displaying lifelike wax figures of actors, musicians, athletes, world leaders and historical icons that visitors are encouraged to pose beside and touch. Opened in 2012 on Aquarium Wharf at Darling Harbour, it was the thirteenth Madame Tussauds to open worldwide and remains the only one in Australia, part of the global Merlin Entertainments group that traces its craft back to the eighteenth-century modeller Marie Tussaud......

Winding for around ten kilometres along the northern shore of Sydney Harbour, the Manly to Spit Bridge Coastal Walk is one of the city's best-loved bushwalks, linking the seaside suburb of Manly with the Spit Bridge at Mosman. The track threads between pockets of bushland, secluded harbour beaches and clifftop lookouts, offering a sequence of changing views across the water to the city skyline, the heads and the boats that crowd the harbour. Along the way walkers pass quiet coves such as Forty .....

In the heart of Sydney's central business district, Martin Place is a broad pedestrian plaza that runs for several blocks between George and Macquarie Streets, flanked by grand banking halls, the General Post Office and the towers of the financial sector. Originally a narrow street, it was progressively widened and finally closed to most traffic to create a public space that functions as the civic and commercial centre of the city. The plaza is home to the Cenotaph, a war memorial where Anzac D.....

A creative hub on Sydney's famous Oxford Street, the Oxford Art Factory is one of the city's most influential independent live-music venues. Opened in 2007 and inspired by the spirit of Andy Warhol's legendary studio, the venue was conceived as a multidisciplinary space blending live music, visual art and performance, and it has spent years as a vital launchpad for emerging artists and a favoured stop for touring acts in the heart of Darlinghurst. The venue centres on a main performance space h.....

Spinning through 270-degree turns and power-braking to a sudden stop, Oz Jet Boating offers a high-speed thrill ride on the waters of Sydney Harbour rather than a sightseeing cruise. Boats depart from the Eastern Pontoon at Circular Quay, putting passengers within sight of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge before the driver opens the throttle and begins a sequence of spins, slides and fishtails. The rides typically last around half an hour and combine genuine harbour scenery with the kind of m.....

Port Jackson is the formal name for the great natural harbour at the heart of Sydney, the deep, branching inlet more widely known simply as Sydney Harbour. Carved by a drowned river valley and fed by the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers, it stretches inland from the Pacific between the sandstone cliffs of North and South Head and takes in the bays, coves and headlands that frame the modern city. The harbour was named by James Cook in 1770 as he sailed past, though he did not enter it; it was Art.....