There's a quality of light, space and openness that makes Sydney instantly attractive. The harbour is the perfect setting for a modern city.

Where once it was just a safe anchorage, Sydney is now shoreside parks, sailing trips and fantastic views. Sydney has its romantic touches, but really it offers a lively, uncomplicated weekend. It is an accessible city, all flash and cash to Melbourne’s reserve.

Sydney's cuisine is enough to make your taste buds dance for 12,000 miles. French and Italian are now thoroughly mixed with Asian. The scene is constantly in flux—where recently it was all minimalism, noise and chrome, quiet bistro is now beginning to make its mark.

Friday nights are still full-on. Wine Banq in Martin Place has limitless wines by the glass. Cockle Bay is also a popular gathering point. For an commanding outlook, try Forty One Restaurant at the top of the Chifley Tower in the CBD (Central Business District). ‘Level 41’, as it is familiarly known, was originally built as a penthouse for Alan Bond. Even the loos have a view.

If you need to clear the head on a Saturday morning then the beach is right there. Bondi is where the Aussie body-beautiful run and sun themselves. After a passing look at the regular weekend lifesavers’ competitions, walk along the sandstone cliffs to the smaller and more charming Bronte Beach. For breakfast try any of the streetfront cafes, for a bowl of fresh fruit or a smoothie (liquidized fruit with yoghurt, milk and honey) with Turkish toast.

Lungs packed with ocean air, you might feel ready for something a little more cerebral. Head back into town via the suburbs of Paddington and Woollahra, which have a clutch of Sydney’s best art galleries. (They also have some of Sydney’s prettiest houses, traditional Victorian cottages with filigree metal balconies.) Olsen Carr is run by Tim, son of Australian Abstractionist John Olsen, and deals in modern Australian paintings and sculpture.

If it’s fashion you prefer, then Oxford Street Paddington (at the top of the hill) is one of Sydney’s best shopping districts. On Saturday mornings is the Paddington Markets, where you can browse among the modern arts and crafts, ceramics, fashion and leather goods.

By this time you’ll be either overloaded with packages or simply overwrought, so you will want to retreat to your hotel. In the heart of the harbour is the Park Hyatt Hotel, a low-rise, glass-fronted, glitzy sweep of rooms in S-bend, right on the boardwalk. The rooms at the eastern end have the best views of the Opera House and the skyscrapers of the CBD. The smartest hotel in town is the Observatory, which set in a quieter, slightly marginalised section of the Rocks and has a refined, genteel air. Its spa is where well-heeled Sydney girls creep off to treat themselves to a day’s proper pampering and it is equally restorative after a long flight.

As the mind turns again to food, think MG Garage, on Crown Street in Surry Hills, where the fare is described as ‘refined food and cars’: modern Australian cuisine with Greek snatches, served in a gleaming chrome car showroom. If you feel taken by the idea, there are MGs and Lotuses on the menu as well. Neil Perry was once an angry young man of Sydney cuisine, now he is an establishment around town. His flagship is Rockpool on the Rocks, chrome and mirrors muted by thick carpets. Rockpool headlines on superbly cooked fresh fish and seafood with Asian touches.

Head round Circular Quay (from where you can catch ferries to all the Sydney suburbs) to the Opera House, then continue along the shoreline to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, where there are lovely views of the harbour and the Harbour Bridge. The Sydney Botanical Gardens are just behind you. Then swing into the Domain, where open-air concerts are held on Saturdays in January on the lawns around the solid, colonial buildings. Among these is the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where you should stop to view the Twentieth Century Australian art collection and the Aboriginal collection, all dots and lines on eucalyptus bark.

Don’t neglect the North Shore. A good option is to take a JetCat to Manly, from where you can follow the coast on the ocean side to the North Head, or inside the harbour to Spit Bridge, both charming walks. Harbour trips are available from Circular Quay or through private arrangement. Helicopters are available too.

And finally for a romantic moment, dinner on the waterfront. Catalinas Rose Bay in the Eastern Suburbs has the perfect setting, a bright white, glass-fronted pavilion with a curved veranda where you dine right on the water with the moonlight glinting in the bay.

Published under licence from Travel Intelligence.