Our usual Sydney go-to (the Sydney Harbour hotel, formerly known as the Rydges Sydney Harbour formerly known as the Holiday Inn Old Sydney) is closed for several months for renovations. I became suspicious when I couldn’t get us a room there over a year in advance, but we walked down there yesterday and it is a construction zone. Instead we stayed at the next closest hotel, the Rendezvous Hotel. $350USD a night for a room of questionable cleanliness and poor lighting (but maybe that was a blessing given the condition of the floor). We probably should have gone with the Marriott but it is a bit further and $200 more expensive. I am currently lying on my back traction device on the questionable floor because the bed was crap but in an hour this will be be only a memory (of where not to stay in the future).
We walked our bags up the hill two blocks to drop them off at the hotel yesterday morning and then swung into Pancakes on the Rocks for second breakfast. We then took a ferry to Manly and hiked the coastal trail to the North Head of Sydney Harbour. Six miles and I literally fell asleep on concrete bleachers overlooking Manly Beach when we were done. Took the ferry back to Circular Quay, got a foot long Subway to share, wrestled our luggage into our room and ate and crashed.
It so weirdly familiar here, but then it’s our fifth time being in Sydney. I could spend a month here…in a cleaner, cheaper place!
Next stop: the Crown Princess
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