Friday, June 20, 2003

 
Thursday was yet another sunshiny day in good old Sydney, and we took a stroll down to Circular Quay and hopped on the ferry to Manly ... I bet there is some great story behind the name "Manly Beach" ... but I do not know it.

The trip is nice, 30 minutes on a comfortable seaworthy vessel, 22AU$ buys a roundtrip for 2 people. And the great view of Sydney's skyline is worth the admission alone.





Once we arrived at Manly Wharf we walked down the promenade to the beach. Lined with a variety of shops and tourist traps and a really cool news agency (a shop selling all kinds of newspapers). At some point I heard one of my all-time favorite tunes: "MacArthur Park" ... and it was played by the New South Wales police band .. how cool ... they were playing some more later, with one of the uniformed ladies singing ...

The beach was pretty empty, but considering the temperature we were surprised to find people in the water ... surfers and suicidal children.





We did not stay too long, without the bathing fun the Manly Beach experience is basically restricted to walking up and down the 2 store-lined sides of the main stretch. And who really wants to pay 45AU$ for a Billabong T-Shirt???

So, we took the 12:45PM ferry back and went to The Rocks for some Pizza ... last sunday we saw a nice place there and we found it again, a small, very italian pizza place by the name of "Zia Pina". We shared a small pizza with onion, pepperoni, anchovies, olives and cheese and a small portion of "Tortelini alla crema" ... and I was very happy to find a very decent priced bottle of italian Soave in the southern hemisphere.




After lunch we ran a couple of errands, minor shopping and then back to the hotel for a break. For our last dinner we returned to the ideal source of fresh Sushi: Makoto ... we managed to go there 3 times in just one week. This time we just had to wait 20 minutes .. this place seems to always attract a crowd ... it also seems to not have any bathroom facilities ... But the food was great again!




posted by Peter 7:15 AM