Sydney Tower, Sydney (must see)

Should you ever lose your bearings in Sydney, no worries. Just look up—the city’s tallest attraction, Sydney Tower, is impossible to miss. Also known as the Sydney Tower Eye, this 309-metre needle shoots out of the Centrepoint complex on Market Street and spends its days keeping watch over the entire Central Business District like a polite, well-dressed sentinel.

The tower sprang from the imagination of architect Donald Crone, who set its construction in motion in 1975. By 1981, Sydney had a brand-new landmark that announced, with quiet confidence, that the city had fully embraced late-20th-century ambition. Its slender shaft lifts a golden turret that looks part spaceship, part crown—home to observation decks, restaurants, and more communication gear than a sci-fi movie prop room.

Engineers anchored the tower deep into Sydney’s sandstone bedrock, giving it the strength to withstand powerful winds and even the occasional tremor. During an earthquake, it can sway up to 30 centimetres, which sounds dramatic until you remember it’s meant to do that. Think of it as architectural yoga...

The enclosed Sydney Tower Eye observation deck sits 250 metres above the street, offering a 360-degree sweep of the harbour, the Pacific coastline, and the Blue Mountains lounging in the distance. A little higher up, at 268 metres, the SKYWALK takes things further: visitors strap into safety harnesses, step onto glass platforms, and instantly realise how tiny the cars look from up here.

Inside the turret, two revolving restaurants keep the scenery moving—literally—completing a full rotation every 70 to 90 minutes. High-speed lifts whisk guests to the top in under a minute, and at night the tower glows in whatever colour Sydney feels like celebrating.

In essence, Sydney Tower is the city’s proud vertical exclamation mark—tall, bright, and always ready for its close-up.