Hyde Park & the Anzac Memorial

Australia’s oldest public parkland, set aside in 1810, and now a formal square in the middle of the city crossed by an avenue of enormous hill figs. At the northern end is the Archibald Fountain of 1932; at the southern, the Anzac Memorial of 1934, which is the finest art deco building in the city and is free to enter.

Its ceiling is set with thousands of gold stars, one for each man and woman of New South Wales who served in the First World War.

What it costs

⭐ Free — the park, the fountain and the memorial, including the exhibition beneath it.

When to go

Lunchtime on a weekday, when the whole city centre comes out and sits in it. The fig avenue is at its best in the morning when the light comes down it lengthwise.

Getting there

St James and Museum stations sit at either end of the park, both on the City Circle line. From Circular Quay it is a fifteen-minute walk up Macquarie Street.

⭐ Tap on and tap off. Fares here are distance-based, so failing to tap off charges you the maximum for the line. A contactless credit or debit card works at the gate exactly like an Opal card and earns the same caps, so most visitors never buy a card at all — ⚠️ but use the same card every time, because the caps are counted per card. There is a daily cap, a weekly cap, and a much lower cap on Sundays, after which the whole network is one fare. See Getting Around.

If you only have an hour

In at the fountain, straight down the fig avenue, into the Anzac Memorial, and out the other side. Forty minutes, all free, and the memorial is the part nobody expects.

What people get wrong

⚠️ Visitors walk through it and never go inside the memorial. It looks like a monument and is a building, with a room under it that is one of the most affecting spaces in Sydney.