DK Sydney

This travel guide is one of the best, detailed books on Sydney. I have many Eyewitness Guides for other locations around the world. The detailed maps in the back of the book are very useful when in an unfamiliar place.

I must say I am pretty impressed by this travel guide to Sydney. And I can doubly assure you of that it is excellent because I live here in Sydney! The reason I got this book was because in my experience the best travel guides are generally the ones from DK and this one didn't dissappoint. A travel guide like this is great for people who come to Sydney and stay with me. I can lend them this book to get around town during the weekdays while I am at work - but that said, even I find it useful. I do a fair bit of travelling around internationallly and tend to take Sydney for granted. Reading through this book there are great little accounts of it's history as well as interesting suggestions for good restaurants and bars. When you've lived in a place for a long time you tend to frequent the same favorite spots over and over so it's nice getting tips for 'best restaurants and bars' that differ from those from other sources. One of the best things here are the walks at the back. I know most of the areas on them modestly well but I must say they are brilliantly planned. Also, as always, the maps of every suburb listed here are excellent for the novice to navigate around this city. As for shortcomings, these are few and far between but even then it seems you can't please everyone. You can easily list things that could have been covered in better detail - but then again most people who visit here just won't have enough time to cover them all. Chinatown for one gets covered rather superficially. Also there is excessive coverage of St Mary's Cathedral - you can find plenty of far older and architechturally grander churches in any town in Europe. Churches of this size are rare here in Australia so for Australians it is considered worthy of mention but otherwise don't even bother going there. Ditto for the Art Gallery of New South Wales - compared to Boston, New York or any major European city it is laughable, except of course for the wonderful Aboriginal section there. As for the rest of it, I find it an embarrassment that the authors insist on dwelling on it. Lastly, as for budget restaurants, there are plenty of them listed in this book. There is a book here in Sydney called 'Cheap Eats' if you really wanted a book that listed the best budget restaurants in town. Also if you really think about it, an exceptionally expensive top notch restaurant here is regarded as costing around $70-100 Australian per person, which is around $50-75 US dollars. By European and especially by UK standards - this is pretty damned cheap. Reviews I have read of the finest Sydney restaurants in the international press have all been glowing as well. The ones listed here are pretty good picks although the Sydney Morning Herald guide provides a more up to date view of Sydney cuisine. It's all also a matter of taste and opinion too. So if you are thinking of visiting this beautiful city buy this book with confidence. Even I learned more than a thing or two from it.

I didn't find this guide as useful nor as interesting as others in the series but I suspect it's because Sydney doesn't lend itself to guidebooks in the same way London or Rome do. I left Eyewitness at home, carried Frommer's Sydney guide, and winged it the rest of the way. Eyewitness has the best maps by far, though.

There are some guidebooks which make a local cringe in embarassment! Not this one. It covers pretty much everything that a visitor to this city would want to see and do, and even leads people a little (but not TOO far) off the beaten track. There are suggestions for walks along some of the coastal paths, for example, and it includes places farther afield like captain Cook's Landing Place.Like all the books in this series, it is lavishly illustrated and the maps are good. I use it for inspiration for weekend activities. It is a good general guidebook, which could be supplemented by more specialised volumes if you want to concentrate on one aspect of Sydney - eg guides to walks around the harbour, or activities specially for children, guides to national parks etc. but this book seems to cover just about everything at least in an introductory sense.

This is absolutely the best guide to Sydney. You must choose this above all other books! Complete, detailed informaion complete with excellent, useful pictures and commentary. A must buy!