We walk out along Oxford Street and pass many gay clubs -- everything is still a little sleepy here on a Sunday morning. We keep walking along. Oxford Street is a major east/west thoroughfare that goes through Sydney and may even go as far as Bondi Beach. Signs definitely point to the destination of Bondi Junction. After a ways, we come upon an area identified as the Victoria Barracks and then we are in the area known as Paddington. The shopping here looks very nice -- again, not so much traffic on a Sunday morning. There is an area called the Paddington Market, where it appears a Saturday market takes place. At this point, we decide turn back and explore the northern areas of Kings Cross and Potts Point.
We turn north on an interesting looking residential street called Liverpool, which, coincidentally is the same Liverpool street that passes our apartment building downtown! This residential street is really pretty. The townhouses are older and almost all of them feature beautiful wrought iron railings on both the main floor and a balcony on the second floor -- very Victorian looking and very charming. We continue through this neighborhood until we reach Victoria Street which runs north/south. It is about lunchtime, so we stop in a nice looking cafe/restaurant called Tigerbakers. Rob enjoys a sobe noodle salad with chicken and I have a green salad with feta, tomatoes, cucumber, and also chicken. The food is very nice.
We continue north on Victoria Street until it crosses Darlington Street which continues into Kings Cross. Kings Cross sounds like it would be a nice neighborhood, but in fact it is quite squalid! The street is lined with strip clubs! Wouldn't want to be here at night! But just as quickly as the neighborhood turned bad, it then turns nice again as we continue north on Macleay Street. This area has nice shops and restaurants combined with lovely apartment buildings. This area is now considered Potts Point, rather than Kings Cross, I think. We walk as far north on this little peninsula as we can. The northern part of this is occupied by a naval base, so it is obviously not walkable for the general public. We turn south along the Cowper Wharf Road and continue along the water of Woolloomooloo Bay. At the base of the bay is a long wharf extending into the bay containing condos and several large restaurants that are doing good business. We follow the waterfront back to the north and head for Mrs. Macquarie's Point. We are surprised to pass a modern swimming pool club built into a wharf. At the point, of course we stop and Rob sits on Mrs. Macquarie's chair, a seat carved into the rocks.
From here we enjoy a walk through the Botanic Gardens until we reach the Sydney Opera House. Then we head back to our apartment -- we've done a lot of walking today, easily over ten miles. Our path takes us up Pitt Street, which has great central business district shopping, including the historic Strand arcade, which stop to admire and get a cookie.
Dinner tonight will take us back to the Oxford Street neighborhood (Darlinghurst) to the restaurant Baccomatto Osteria, This had been recommended to us by the waiter at Berta, but is also well reviewed by Yelp. We have a very delicious dinner. We start with cod and potato croquettes with a leaf salad. Then Rob has saffron pasta with clams and sea urchin, while I have stracci pasta (pasta sheet cut into squares) with a tomato beef sauce -- we both really enjoy this. We also enjoy a nice conversation with our waiter, who is "over Sydney." Then back to the apartment to watch the men's championship of the Australian Open, which lasts too late, so neither of sees the end of the match (Novak Djokovic wins over Andy Murray).
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