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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, it is now shoreside parks, sailing trips and fantastic views. Also Sydney is looking particularly good at the moment, not least because of the estimated $A250 million spent on sprucing up the streets for the Millennium celebrations and the Olympics.

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. It is familiar somehow, with echoes of homeland Europe, but different too. The modern face of Sydney has eyes fixed on the Pacific.

Not least in its cuisine, which of course are enough to make your taste buds dance from 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 beginning to make its mark. It’s fun, and with the current exchange rate, inexpensive. You eat in dollars for what you would pay in pounds.

Friday nights are still full-on. Sydneysiders haven’t lost their hard drinking habits, but there are wine bars now. Wine Banc in Martin Place has limitless wines by the glass. Cockle Bay is also a popular gathering point. After a certain amount of shoulder-rubbing, though, you may want to retreat to a higher level, two levels to be exact, to Ampersand, which has a top view over the bay and fare to match (contemporary Australian with French and Japanese influences). Or for an even more commanding outlook, try Forty One Restaurant at the top of the Chifley Tower in the CBD (Central Business District). Dishes, with a European base and touches of Asia in the flavour, are ‘constructed’; excellent cheeses and wine list. ‘Level 41’, as it is familiarly known, was originally built as a penthouse for Alan Bond. Even the loos have a view.

Whatever your plans, they simply have to be dropped if you get a reservation at Tetsuya’s. They don’t come easy. Tetsuya doesn’t open on Saturday night, he takes bookings no more than six weeks ahead and is fully subscribed almost at once. However, his command of Australia’s finest ingredients (he decided to close over the Olympics because he couldn’t guarantee supply) and his mastery in mixing tastes from cuisines around the world result in creations that are utterly inspired. Tetsuya has the touch of a magician.

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; the two Sherman Galleries sell contemporary Australian and international works. For the best Aboriginal art in Sydney go to the Hogarth Gallery. Lucio’s Restaurant has been close to the Sydney art scene for many years. Its walls are covered floor-to-ceiling with paintings. The menu of creative Italian dishes was decorated by Olsen himself.

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 Bazaar, where you can pick out items among the modern arts and crafts, ceramics, fashion and leather goods. Paddington has long been the proving ground for Sydney’s young designers - Collette Dinnigan started her lingerie and clothing lines in William St and has recently opened a new boutique two doors from her original shop.

The smarter suburbs of Woollahra and Double Bay are also home to some renowned Australian and international designers. Try Akira Isogawa on Queen Street Woollahra and Belinda in Double Bay on the Harbour’s edge. If you prefer shopping in the buzz of a crowd, then head for the CBD on Saturday afternoon. David Jones is a Sydney stalwart (an upmarket John Lewis) and Grace Bros, once as crusty as its British televisual namesake, has been recently and stylishly revamped. For a downtown jeweller who works Australian opal, try Percy Marks on Elizabeth St.

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 Hyatt Park 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 renowned. This 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. Close by, set in a recently renovated Georgian town-house of pretty Sydney sandstone, is Rockfort, a charming small hotel with a very personable atmosphere. There are just four individually styled rooms. Breakfast is served and dinner is on request, but you probably won’t want it anyway with so many good restaurants within walking distance.

For a designer home away from home, head for the minimalist Medusa in the district of Darlinghurst, itself hip and home to endless coffee shops. Set in a traditional terraced town-house with a lacy grille balcony, Medusa is ultra modern inside, with sleek design and rich and funky colour-schemes. Medusa’s sister hotel, the Kirketon, is nearby. Also high style and low clutter, it is slightly larger (40 rooms) and offers a more traditional hotel service and atmosphere, including a trendy bistro restaurant, Salt. Another stylish stopover is the Regent’s Court, just down from all the activity of Kings Cross (Sydney’s Soho). The décor is cool and understated, but the staff are forthcoming and friendly.

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. For fun Thai food, in the setting of an old Sydney warehouse, Sailors Thai is not far away. Superb. There’s a noodle bar upstairs with communal tables for a quick lunch or early supper.

A city as green and open as Sydney makes for good exploration on foot. The Rocks, Sydney’s earliest settlement, is a pleasant, if slightly touristy place to start. In the block-like MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) on the harbour, the changing exhibitions are often entertaining and controversial, so they are well worth a look.

Next head round Circular Quay (from where you can catch ferries to all the Sydney suburbs, even the Olympic complex at Homebush if you want) to the Opera House. Don’t take a tour, but 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. Amazingly, ibises are a pest here. Look out for the Wollomi Pine, a survivor of the dinosaur era. 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.

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