We sailed in to Sydney harbor at 6:00 am on Sunday morning; I was up on deck (with about 100 other people) to watch the sail-in and take some pictures. Barbara the travel guide was providing commentary on the various points we were passing, which made things more interesting, but the sun was just rising, so not very many details were visible. No one needed either commentary or much light to recognize the Sydney Opera House or the Sydney Harbor Bridge, however. The city was lit up as though expecting us; it looked like a thousand jewels in the early morning sun.

It is hard to come up with enough superlatives to describe Sydney harbor: it is obvious that you are coming into one of the great cities of the world. This cruise is called "Gems of the World" and Sydney is definitely a major gem. Along with New Zealand, Sydney is on my list of places I would gladly visit again.

We toured Sydney harbor later in the day on a tourist boat (Captain Cook's Harbor Tour) and saw many of the same sights again, although the light was better and we also went down some of the side harbors (Sydney harbor is really a system of connected harbors rather than one big harbor) that the ms Amsterdam did not (could not) go down. One of the things we learned on the tour is that the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth II are both expected to arrive in Sydney on Tuesday, February 22. We were told that the Queen Elizabeth II would dock where we were docked, in Circular Quay, but the Queen Mary is so large that the military harbor would be cleared of military vessels and the Queen Mary would take up the whole of that harbor. Apparently the only ship that large that has ever anchored in Sydney is one of the US aircraft carriers, which had to anchor in the middle of the harbor. We had much discussion of the Queen Mary and the Oasis (which is the world’s largest ocean liner) and what it would be like to cruise on a ship that big.

Everyone told us that Auckland was known as “the City of Sails,” but that title could apply to Sydney as well. Our first day was a Sunday, and at one time when I looked around on the cruise we were literally surrounded by sails; it seemed like everyone in Sydney was out on the water in a sailboat. I tried to get a picture, but the crowd had thinned out somewhat by the time I got my camera aimed.

After the harbor cruise, David and I had a lunch of mussels at a restaurant on the quay by the Opera House, and then decided to walk off our meal in the Royal Botanic Gardens behind the Opera House.

On our way into the gardens, we passed a hill that looked like an architectural rubbish heap – pediments, columns and other architectural elements scattered everywhere.  I have no idea why they were there or what they are intended to convey, but there were several children having a good time playing around them.

I walked around the gardens for over an hour taking pictures, while David very sensibly found a seat in the shade and sat down to wait for me. I meant to sit down beside him after my walk-around, but he got up and met me on the path, so I continued on, taking more pictures as I went. There was a view of the lagoon or small bay the gardens are on, and the bright red train (two, actually) that visitors can ride around the gardens on for a small fee, and what seemed like the back door of the Sydney Opera House (but is actually the front door). I needed to take a few pictures from that perspective to prove I was really there and not just on a ride-by on the ship.

By the time we walked around the Quay and back onto the ship, I was very tired indeed.    Next time I spring for a ticket on the tram.