Beautiful downtown and harbour - Sydney

Well, from now, Corona was present everywhere. Of course, I had followed the German news already the last days and was also updated by some of you guys😉, but now it also got really present here in Australia. On the bus to Sydney, some people wore face masks. The guy sitting next to me was equipped with a helmet - well that one probably not against the virus🤔 -, but also a mask, and big bottles of desinfection spray as well as hand sanitiser. And, he was spraying quite a few times during the bus ride. Furthermore, I had found out on the bus, that New Zealand would foreigners only allow into the country anymore if they went for fourteen days into self-isolation. Well, my flight to Wellington was planned in two days, the return flight to Germany from Auckland only five days later. Do the math - that cannot work. Since, the measures taken in Europe also became stricter and stricter - as you all know - I decided, I had to book an earlier flight home from Sydney. So, after having arrived in Sydney at 10:00 am, I spent the first three hours or so in the hostel to search and book a new flight from Sydney to Frankfurt via Abu Dhabi, and to cancel my flight and hostel bookings for New Zealand. However, afterwards I wanted to start exploring Sydney even though the weather was rainy. At 2:30 pm, I went on a free walking tour with the same tour operator as in Melbourne. Already on the way to the meeting point as well as during the tour, I felt that Sydney somehow caught me more than Melbourne. The tour was excellent, the guide told us many interesting facts about Sydney and showed us beautiful places. Even the rain, that was pouring down almost the entire first half of the tour could not affect my mood of enjoying the tour. In my opinion, Sydney has kind of well managed to fit together the old historic buildings with the modern skyscrapers that certainly dominate the downtown area. I also was impressed by the beautiful Hyde Park (in a hefty rain shower😄). One of my favourite places was a little laneway that was decorated with many hanging bird cages (no worries, there are no real birds inside, but artificial bird noises though). According to our guide this was meant as a short-term arts project, but, since the people of Sydney liked it so much, it is now permanently there. In the second half of the tour, we covered the area close to the harbour. Well, I guess, all of us have seen Sydney harbour, the bridge and the opera house on TV and/or on pictures, but is still different to be there! I was fascinated and we were also lucky with the weather because the sun had shown up now. This tour had definitely turned a day that had started badly, into a nice day😁Read more