InterContinental Sydney

The hotel occupies the old Treasury building on Phillip Street, a short walk from Circular Quay and the point where Sydney arranges its two most famous shapes into a single photograph. Arrival is through the older building; everything above it is contemporary.

The position rewards walking. The gardens sit at one end of the day and the ferries at the other, with the hotel in the middle and a lift to take you out of the weather. What completes it is Aster, on level 32, where the harbour appears all at once and from high enough to make sense of the geography. It is an address that gives the same city back twice: once at sea level, once from the roof.

Between the Quay and the gardens

The address is 16 Phillip Street, at the northern edge of the business district and a few minutes from Circular Quay on foot. That puts the Opera House, the Royal Botanic Gardens and the ferry wharves inside the same short radius, which makes a first visit to Sydney unusually straightforward: the city can be taken at walking pace and by water, in whichever order the weather suggests. Returning between outings costs nothing more than the walk.

Three versions of the view

Guest rooms look out at the harbour, the gardens or the skyline, and the three make quite different stays. Harbour categories put the landmarks into the morning routine; garden rooms are the calmer proposition; the city rooms have the most Sydney of the three outlooks after dark. Furnishings stay contemporary and out of the way. Suites add the separate sitting room that a long visit or a slow start benefits from.

Level 32 at dusk

Aster occupies the 32nd floor and does what a rooftop bar in this city has to do: it holds the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in one frame and lets the light do the rest. Cocktails and small plates arrive at the pace of the sunset. Lower down, The Treasury is the indoor counterpart, older in feeling and better suited to a long evening. Between them the hotel covers both altitudes.