A Stop-Off in Sydney: Site-Seeing, Croissants, Cocktails 🍸

There is an abundance of things to do in and around Sydney, so what should you do if you’re just stopping off for a couple of nights?

Wholegreen Bakery in Alliance Francais on Clarence Street. We were staying near the CBD so this was near to us. This is a 100% gluten free bakery and there are so many options! Savoury pies, sausage rolls, pasties etc. to sweet croissants, cakes, tarts… you will have a hard time making choices!

You can sit in or grab and go, or both like I did. We got a sausage roll, a croissaint croque monsieur, an almond croissant, a pain au chocolat and a plain croissant to try for good measure. The stand out of the show for me goes to the almond croissant but honestly all were amazing so you choose true to you and I don’t think you can go wrong!

On to the day’s activities, if you’re in Sydney and didn’t get a photo by the opera house… were you even in Sydney?

I recommend going for a wander through the beautiful botanical gardens and ending up at the Opera House via them. I loved the angle of the photo you can take from this side of the opera house and the gardens are a worthy attraction themselves so you can tick two must sees off your list.

Another iconic photo op moment is by the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We didn’t have time to go to the actual bridge, but you can get a decent photo of it if you continue to walk past the opera house on to the walkway by the harbour.

If you’re looking for food around the harbour, there are a couple of no fuss chain restaurants nearby.

The first is Chat Thai which has a really great gluten free thai menu as well as Betty’s Burgers which has Gluten free burger buns and their vegan patty is also gluten free.

A walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach is well worth doing as this is a lovely coastal walk. If you’re staying in town, you can get a train and a bus to Bondi which will take over 30 minutes to arrive at Bondi beach.

Once there, the walk is around 6km one-way so will take 2-3 hours depending on stops.

You pass the Bondi Icebergs Swimming Club first which is a pool by the sea and then onto multiple other small beaches on the way, Tamarama Beach, Bronte Beach, Clovelly, Gordon’s Bay and then finally Coogee Beach.

There’s an annual 3 week event called Sculpture by the Sea which happened to be on when I was there in November which added another layer to this beautiful walk, as well as time because we stopped to read about all of the fascinating sculptures. Don’t feel like you need to complete the whole walk, at any point you are near the road to be able to get a bus or taxi back.

Head back to the town to get a bite to eat before getting ready to explore Sydney by night!

I went to a lovely Indian restaurant called Delhi O Delhi which was in Newtown which had gluten free options clearly marked on the menu and the food was good. There are restaurants dotted around in this area with good gluten free options too!

I really loved the atmosphere of this area as it felt like there was a lot of character, a lot to do, but also still quite intimate! There were in general a lot of gluten free options in this area but for other options in the city check out my recommendations below!

Speak easy bars are a cool thing I had not experienced before going to Sydney. These are bars that are quite hard to find unless someone has told you about them (albeit a bit easier in the age of the internet). If in the city, I went to one called Old Mate’s Place on Clarence Street that I couldn’t recommend enough!

We actually almost didn’t find it as it’s in an unassuming building and has no signs outside it. We went in to what looked like an apartment block that, if it was in London, I wouldn’t walk in past the dodgy dirty white walls and spotted vinyl floor.

However, we went up in the lift and on the 4th floor there’s a security guard sitting outside a door which honestly looks like it could be the door to your mates living room, but upon opening it it’s a busy 2 floor bar!

Another option if you wanted to experience some night life out of the city is to go to Newtown. Here there is a bit more character and it’s a bit more edgy. I’d recommend to do a bit of a bar hop here.

There’s so much to explore in Sydney, but this was a great quick tour of the city with a good few areas ticked off!

Restaurants I visited:

1. Wholegreen Bakery & Cafe (Sydney CBD, Alexandria) 2. Chat Thai (Various locations)

3. Betty’s Burgers (Various locations)

4. Delhi O Delhi

Other Restaurants on My List:

1. Fortune Village Chinese Restaurant – GF options on request

2. Nutie – 100% GF Bakery

3. Wafu Kitchen – 100% GF and Dairy Free Japanese

4. 15cenchi Japanese Cheesecake – 100% GF

5. Sebastien Sans Gluten – 100% GF Bakery

6. Esteban – Mostly GF Mexican

7. UCHILOUNGE / O’Uchi – Mostly GF Japanese

8. Comeco Foods Cafe – 100% GF and Vegan Cafe

9. Yulli’s – offers a coeliac friendly menu

Activities I did:

Bondi Beach

Coogee Beach

Opera House

Botanical Gardens

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Other Activities on My List:

Hyper Karting & Virtual Reality

B. Lucky & Sons Entertainment Quarter – Arcade Games Bar

Putt Planet – Mini Golf

Luna Park Sydney – Amusement Park

Manly Beach – Another beautiful beach but in the north of Sydney

Have you been to anhy of these places in Sydney!? What was your favourite?