Walking to the Opera House
After our walking tour of Sydney ended, we headed toward the Opera House. On the way, we expected to find lunch. Some people stopped off as we passed pubs and cafes, while some continued on all the way to the restaurants on the Opera House site.
This Google Earth image shows part of the area we've been touring, and all of the area in which we'll be for the rest of today.
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| Google Earth image |
We've been most recently in The Rocks, which is indicated on the left side of the image. The Circular Quay is the area encompassing the cruise ship and the five quays with the smaller vessels (ferries, taxis, and the like). Fancy hotels are along the right (East) side of the quay, while the Opera House is out on the point of land that juts into the harbor. All along the Circular Quay are restaurants and shopping. The restaurants extend all the way to the Opera House, along the water. Near the Opera House the restaurants are open-air, but under cover, and they don't appear in the aerial photo.
We passed a shop offering things Australian (check out the boomerangs in the window). These didgeridoos were on display outside.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on the didgeridoo. The name didgeridoo seems to be a Western invention; it has many names depending on the location of the aboriginal people making and playing it. One of it's "real" names is ngarrriralkpwina, so it's easy to see why Westerners would invent a name they could pronounce.
This fellow was playing a didgeridoo on the street, with a container open to receive coins from passers-by. Notice that he's hi-tech: he has an amplifier and speaker, with the microphone on the ground just in front of his instrument. He was producing seriously weird sounds.
We passed under this really old-fashioned street light as we walked under a viaduct to get over to the Opera House area. It's electrified now, but must have had oil lamps and then gas lamps years ago. This is one of the oldest parts of Sydney.
A rather unusual Christmas tree in a public space.
We're at the Circular Quay now. Here we can see a huge cruise ship and the Opera House.
Here's the row of hotels that show up on the Eastern side of the quay.
The cruise ship, Royal Caribbean International's Radiance of the Seas, as seen from the Eastern side of the quay. One of the local cruise boats looks like its tiny sister next to it.
After passing the hotels, we could see the Opera House ahead of us. We descended an escalator to the lower level where the bars, restaurants, and seating areas are.
Pre-concert lunch
A typical restaurant. All the ones we saw were of the order-at-the-counter variety. A waiter would then bring your order to your table once it was prepared.
A sampling of what several in our group had for lunch. All of it was excellent, including the local beer and the sake.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
Time to start thinking about going up to the Opera House (it's just overhead from here) to attend the concert, a matinee by the Sydney Symphony with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet as guest soloists.
Yes, we really have tickets to the Sydney Opera House.
Attending a concert
The inside of the Opera House is very interesting -- all the structure is exposed to view. Much more of this on our Opera House tour, later in the day.
Our tickets were bought at different times, so we weren't all seated together. Did you notice the fine print at the bottom of the ticket above? It says "Rear View seating behind Stage". Some people (not part of our tour) were in fact directly behind the stage. A group of us weren't directly behind, but were off to one side while being further back than the last row of musicians. This is the view from my seat before the concert began.
Another group was seated in front of the orchestra, but well back in the hall.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
Looking toward the main seating area, from the "behind the stage" seats.
Looking over the edge, directly down at the tympanist's position. I don't think I've ever before been this close to the performers in a concert hall.
Christa took these photos at intermission -- looking out through the Opera House's windows at the Circular Quay with the cruise ship, and looking toward the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
After the concert, before our guided tour of the Opera House, I spent some time wandering around the outside.
This display shows the "eureka moment" of the architect, Jörn Utzon. He had designed the sculptural shape of the "sails", the curved walls that were to form the roofs of the performance halls. The shapes were very complex, though, and were next to impossible to construct. Every part of every roof/wall was to be unique, which would lead to great expense and construction delays. The display shows how, by adapting the curves in his design a bit, he could form each roof out of a section of a sphere. Now all the curves would be the same, and the roofs could be assembled by bolting together many identical parts. This made the Opera House's construction feasible.
Christa also took some photos outside, including a great one contrasting the "sails" with the virtual sea of steps leading up to the Opera House.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
Eike took these two outside the Opera House.
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| Eike Richter photo |
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| Eike Richter photo |
A guided tour of the Opera House
Then it was time for our tour. We each had a radio headset so that we could easily hear our guide without having to all cluster around her.
We started by walking up the stairs on the outside to get to a balcony that overlooked Sydney Harbour.
From there, we had excellent views of the Harbour Bridge and the activity in the harbour.
The dots on the very top of the bridge are people taking tours of the structure.
Back inside, we saw a large space with very purple carpet. The space is a foyer or promenade, where concert goers can gather before entering the hall for a concert. Our guide explained that Luciano Pavarotti had been invited to a reception there, where he was guest of honor. He stepped into the room, saw the purple carpet, and refused to participate. It seems that purple signified death and funerals to him. Not a problem: the house staff picked up everything for the reception and moved it to the near-twin foyer of the other hall, which had carpet of another color. Pavarotti was satisfied, and the show went on. The photo doesn't really convey how highly saturated the purple color is.
Some views of the architecture of the inside of the Opera House.
The exterior surfaces are covered with specially-made ceramic tiles. I was reminded of the tiles on the Space Shuttle, but of course the two kinds of tiles are not alike at all. These are ceramic, and should last a very long time.
Much of the Opera House looks nautical -- sails, rigging, or ribs of a ship.
Here are some of the identical parts that were assembled together to make one of the roof shells. To me, it looks for all the world like the inside of some gargantuan typewriter.
The end of the day was ours
After our tour, we were on our own for the rest of the evening. Eike and Kathleen took a ride on one of the ferries or harbor boats and captured these iconic images.
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| Eike Richter photo |
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| Eike Richter photo |
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| Eike Richter photo |
Several of us started walking back toward our hotel, which was a considerable distance away. When we reached the monorail, we rode it the rest of the way back. The third photo below shows he monorail from our hotel.
Christa stayed around the Opera House. This is a shot of happy hour around Circular Quay.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
She got her own iconic images of the Opera House as the sun went down.
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
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| Christa Wessel photo |
An excellent day as a tourist. The Sydney Opera House is even more spectacular than it appears in photographs. It was definitely the highlight of the Sydney portion of our trip.
Tomorrow, our last day here, we have time to explore on our own in the morning and early afternoon, and then a farewell dinner cruise on the harbor.
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