Museum & Art Galleries

Sydney’s best museum is in fact the city itself, especially the areas most closely associated with European settlement: The Rocks, the Domain, Circular Quay and Macquarie Street. Sydneysiders decry the destruction of so much colonial architecture, but visitors will still find much to delight them, especially as the city is framed by a constantly changing harbour. Here are some of the noteworthy ones grouped by relative closeness to one another.

Australian Museum

The Australian Museum in College Street is worthwhile for its fine Australian wildlife and Aboriginal collections. Established in 1827, it is known as Australia's first museum and has a good reputation in the fields of natural history and indigenous studies.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

From the moment the first fleet arrived, artists have been trying to capture Australia's remarkable light, fauna and emptiness. The full span of that enterprise is brilliantly captured at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, just a five-minute walk from Sydney's city centre. The permanent collection includes all of Australia's great colonial artists and later impressionists, as well as more recent works by Fred Williams, Sir Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley. The temporary exhibitions are also well worth a visit.

Hype Park Barracks Museum

Hyde Park Barracks, like St James' Church designed by Australia's leading colonial architect, Thomas Greenway, focuses on early colonial history and convict life. The museum has a delightful restaurant in its courtyard.

Parliament House – Parliament of New South Wales

The most important historical precinct in Sydney is located in a triangle between St James' Church, Parliament House and Hyde Park Barracks - it was the seat of power in early 19th-century Australia. With its leather benches, wood-panelled walls and framed portraits, the parliament seems like an anachronism in modern-day Australia - an allegation frequently levelled at the state MPs who lounge there.

The State Library of New South Wales

Most of the collections of the State Library are housed in an elegant sandstone building overlooking the Botanic Gardens. Displays of manuscripts, temporary exhibitions devoted to aspects of Australian art and history, a collection of early colonial art make it well worth a visit.

Museum of Sydney

Located on the site of Australia’s first Government House (the original building was demolished in 1846) this museum is resolutely modern in design and offers the visitor a journey of discovery through Sydney from 1788.

Justice & Police Museum

Although chintzed-up for tourists, the Rocks offers a wonderful insight into convict life. The seriously interested can book a guided walking tour of the Justice & Police Museum. Just off Circular Quay, the museum is funny and alarming in equal measure. The building houses some astonishing criminal artefacts alongside its convict cells, including the death mask of notorious bushranger Captain Moonlight..

National Maritime Museum

Children will be delighted by early surfing memorabilia, a British destroyer and an old Soviet submarine. The temporary exhibitions are also well worth a visit.

Powerhouse Museum

The collection of the museum ranges from decorative arts to crafts, social history, science and technology. The museum provides an innovative, high technology approach to displays including touch-screen, audio phones and variety of other hands-on experiences making it a perfect educative outing for adults and kids alike.

Brett Whiteley Studio

When Brett Whiteley died of a drug overdose in 1992, his studio was left in the state it was found, with unfinished canvases, brushes and paints strewn around. The walls are covered with graffiti, quotes and images, and the museum calls itself 'the best kept secret in Sydney'. Poetry readings are held on the fourth Sunday of every month.

Elizabeth Bay House

Built in the late 1830s for Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay and his family, Elizabeth Bay House once stood in acres of botanical gardens. Now enclosed by ugly suburban housing, it still has the finest colonial-style staircase in Australia.

Nutcote – Home of May Gibbs

Nutcote is the former home of illustrator and children's author May Gibbs. The house was converted into a museum 30 years after her death and it displays a collection of personal artefacts, pictures, sketches and letters.

Vaucluse House and Gardens

One of the few surviving 19th-century harbour estates in Sydney, Vaucluse House was the home of William Charles Wentworth and his family from the 1830s and onwards. The house illustrates the life of Wentworth, the father of the Australian Constitution, his family members and servants. The estate is surrounded by a large formal garden that doubles as a jazz venue during the summer months.

Macleay Museum (At The University of Sydney)

If ethnography and natural history are not your cup of tea – this collection of 9000 stuffed birds has considerable research interest and historical significance -, then a side trip to this slightly off the beaten track museum still gives you an opportunity to just admire Sydney University’s beautiful old sandstone buildings and wander around its grounds.

Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum (Outside Sydney)

Faulconbridge. The gallery, located in the artist's former home in the Blue Mountains, has a major collection of Norman Lindsay's dreamy oils, watercolours, pen drawings and etchings. The large garden contains many of his sculptured ladies.

Rouse Hill Estate

Rouse Hill. Rouse Hill was established by Richard and Elizabeth Rouse in 1813 and has been in use by six generations of the one family. By exploring the remaining 13 hectares, its stables, summerhouse and outbuildings as well as the Georgian house, you can piece together a whole span of Australian history over 185 years. The estate is one of Australia's most culturally important historic properties, not only for its artefacts, furnishings, buildings and gardens, but also because it is the most complete document of continuous family occupancy of a country house in New South Wales.