A perfect day at the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park

The Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park has a beautiful indoor rooftop pool up on level 22 with amazing views of the city and harbour. Or you can walk over to the other side of Hyde Park to Cook & Phillip Aquatic and Fitness Centre in front of St Mary's Cathedral, which has an Olympic-sized heated pool. Drop in for a casual visit then wind down in the Hydrotherapy Pool. 

Enjoy magnificent views of Hyde Park as you choose from a large range of breakfast items, including freshly baked pastries, tea or coffee.

Sydney architect Bruce Dellit was only 31 when he won the 1930 competition to design this beautiful grey-pink granite memorial to the Australian and New Zealand troops who fell in World War I. Until February the memorial is hosting the exhibition Salient: Twelve Contemporary Australian Artists at the Western Front 100 Years on 1918-2018. Marking the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI, the artworks are by artists who visited the battlefields of the Western Front in 2017, a century after the conflict that claimed so many lives.

Make your way back to the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park to lunch in style with the signature restaurant's award-winning international seafood buffet, from $79 per person. 

Barangaroo Reserve was opened in September 2015 on a site that used to be a vacant wharf. It's a park and entertainment space that runs over a number of levels with panoramic views of Sydney Harbour. Marked by beautiful sandstone terraces, it has been landscaped with more than 75,000 native trees and shrubs.

Spend some time at the waterfront precincts on the west side of the city centre. Darling Harbour is Sydney's diverse tourist hub, with numerous restaurants, bars and the starting point for boat tours and water taxis. Darling Quarter is an adjacent cultural precinct offering eateries plus entertainment, arts projects, exhibitions and activities – the very cool kids' playground boasts a 21-metre flying fox and a network of water jets. The Streets of Barangaroo is a new waterfront dining zone with hip bars and fashion stores. 

There is no bar in Sydney embracing the mad craft of cocktail experimentation as wholeheartedly as the team at PS40, nor any having as much fun doing it. You'll find the bar entrance down a laneway off King Street.

Life is sweet when you're perched out the front of Bambini with a chilled pinot grigio, whiling away a lazy afternoon or savouring the evening bustle. The cuisine at Bambini's leans strongly towards meat (steak frites and veal cutlet Milanese) and fish (barrumundi and pesce al forno), and the premium wines on offer need little introduction. 

This basement dive bar is where the good times roll. They keep the lights low, the crunchy corn kernels coming and swampy saloon tunes cranking. The barstaff are as hospitable as they come, and while they’re singing along to an Americana song about Jack Daniel’s, they’re also whipping up exciting drinks. Maybe you need a tropi-cool kickstarter like the Watermelon Man, made with Cognac, dry vermouth, Aperol, lime juice and watermelon soda. But if you just want a $6 can of beer, they'll happily give you one of those.