Australian National Maritime Museum

For all things nautical, head here! They also do functions on the terrace, which looks out at the city with the waters of Darling Harbour in between. Well placed to have an after party of your own at The Star which is within an easy walk.

Great location at Darling Harbour and plenty to see. You can actually visit the permanent galleries for free but have to buy a ticket to the special exhibitions and to board the large vessels and submarine. Free entry to the galleries and exhibitions the first Thursday of each month (excluding school holidays)

I went here when they also had an exhibition with Ansel Adams prints, it's a great space.

Went here with my French exchange student and hubby, it had been a few years since I had been. It's a beautiful building, well thought out. Our only complaint was the exhibition about Indonesia had the video /audio visuals malfunctioning, I'm an Indonesian history buff, so I was disappointed, but otherwise we enjoyed our visit.

I have to say that this place is pretty big and I didn't get time to check all of it out, but then again you do tend to reach a point with museums where you simply say enough, and make it a day (and then head off to do something else). While there are a number of displays inside, it is the ships outside that were of interest to me, and I hadn't been in here for more than five minutes before an advertisement for a tour of the destroy was announced. I have to say that the Destroyer, the HMAS Vampire, is pretty big, so a tour actually helps you get a much better picture of what is going on. They also have a submarine which you can crawl around inside, as well as a patrol boat (which was actually used in a television series though they removed the 50 cal machine gun from the rear just in case somebody stole it). The only other ship you can go on (which I didn't get a chance to) is an huge sailing ship, but that is at the other side of the docks. There is quite a lot here, and if you ...read more