Sculptures by the Sea in Sydney (Bondi Beach)

I love beaches.   Sun, the smell of coconut oil, the sound of the ocean. Ok, so, correction, I love the idea of beaches.  The reality is unpleasant; overheating, getting an unwanted sand exfoliation, and nearly going blind from the combination of sunscreen and salt water.  I blame the fact that I grew up in the midwest because I’m perfectly comfortable swimming in murky lakes with fish nipping at my toes…but I digress.

Last time Ryan and I were in Sydney, we spent half a day at Bondi Beach.  We wore our swimsuits under our clothes but they stayed dry, of course.  Instead, we were lured by The Sculptures by the Sea exhibit, a coastal walk from Tamarama Beach to Bondi, held only at the end of October.

The exhibit features over 100 sculptures from artists all over the world and turns a familiar coastal walk into a 2km sculpture park which is free to the public.

We saw some amazing sculptures set on rocks and on cliffs with the ocean as the backdrop.  Here’s a small sample of the work we saw:

Visit the Sculpture by the Sea website to see images of all the sculptures.

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Three Reasons to Love Sydney

Ok, so there are WAY more than three reasons to love Sydney but I’m holding back for future posts.

Sydney is FABULOUS.  We discovered this a couple of weeks ago when we spent a mini-holiday as Sydney tourists.  It was our first opportunity to spend any amount of quality time in the city and I can see why so many people call it their favorite Australian city.  I’ll still give preference to Melbourne (of course!) but I could see myself in Sydney and here’s why:

Three Reasons to Love Sydney

1.  The Opera House – It’s arguably the most iconic Australian image in existence so I won’t spent a ton of time explaining its majesty.  Let me just say that it’s beautiful, to my architecturally-untrained eyes, and every-bit of “wow” as you’d hope.  Each angle offering a spectacularly different view than the last.

The big surprise is that it’s not white as it appears in photos.  The tiles are cream.  And dirty….the only thing I didn’t like about the Opera House.

2. The Harbour Bridge – If you’re fiscally conservative (read: thrifty) like us you can get great FREE views of the bridge from the many ferries or from The Rocks and probably many other places.  It makes for a beautiful photo.  See?

If you have some spare change you can pay $200-$300 per person to climb the bridge and take pictures from there.  Thanks but no thanks.

3.  The Rocks – Two awesome things about The Rocks District (A list within a list!) : 1. The Rocks Market.  Great variety of items with stalls set throughout the historic Rocks district.  It reminded me a lot of the Tassy Salamanca Market.

2.  The Tiramisu Crunch at the Rocks Cafe.  I can’t speak about the quality of the other food at the cafe but the Tiramisu Crunch is the best dessert we’ve had in Australia hands down.  Espresso soaked cake layered with mascarpone and (I swear) cream cheese topped with candied nuts.  TO.DIE.FOR.

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