Harbour & Macquarie Street Walk

Welcome to Circular Quay, often called the gateway to Sydney, with its ferry wharves, promenades and views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Its Aboriginal name is Warrung, meaning little child, and Aboriginal Australians lived around Sydney for at least 30,000 years before Europeans arrived. This cove, Sydney Cove, was where the First Fleet landed on 26 January 1788, and the city grew from here. The quay itself was built between 1837 and 1844 by giving the southern end of the cove an artificial shoreline, filling in the mouth of the Tank Stream.

It was first called Semi-Circular Quay, after its shape, and the name was later shortened. Today it's also a favourite spot for watching the New Year's Eve fireworks.

This is the Sydney Opera House, one of the world's most famous buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture. It stands on Bennelong Point, between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove. The Danish architect Jørn Utzon won an international design competition in 1957, and work began in 1958. But cost and schedule overruns led to his resignation in 1966, and an Australian team headed by Peter Hall completed it.

Queen Elizabeth the Second opened it on 20 October 1973. The roofs are a series of concrete shells, each made from sections of a sphere. From a distance they look white, but up close you'll see a chevron pattern of over a million tiles in glossy white and matte cream. Utzon received the Pritzker Prize in 2003, and the building became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.