2 On the Road: Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is probably the most recognized place in Australia. It is a World Heritage-listed masterpiece and the country’s number one tourist destination and its busiest performing arts center, welcoming more than 10.9 million visitors a year on site and hosting more than 1,800 performances attended by more than 1.4 million people.

There's some construction right in front of the Opera House so we didn't get any good photos there. This photo shows the Portside Cafe area along the shore. They had a huge problem with seagulls stealing food and we saw some get taken while we were waiting for our tour to start. Management has noticed a large decrease in food thefts since they have put dogs are on patrol

There's a very informative website about the Opera House. Go to
https://www.housedigest.com/905040/the-untold-truth-of-the-sydney-opera-house/ and check it out.

Looking out over Circular Quay from the cafe area. To the left is downtown...

Right across is The Rocks area but you can't see it because of the cruise ship. In front of the cruise ship is a refueling ship and in front of it is a harbor ferry.

Just a little more to the right is the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There's a tour called the Bridge Climb where you can walk up the bridge support to the very top. Must be quite a view from there but imaging the number of steps to get there!

This is the Southeast Pylon within which is located a museum about the construction of the bridge. That was one of the next day's destinations.

Our tour started with each of us being issued a listening device so we could hear the tour guide. First we went up a flight of steps where some of the architectural features were mentioned.

Above the concrete, the Opera House is three separate structures. At this point we are in the Concert Hall building.

Whew! Glad we didn't have to climb this set of stairs. We did come down them later in the tour.

We did climb lots of steps on this tour and I think it was the biggest workout of the year for some of the people. Anyway, once you are on the purple carpet, you know you are headed to the Concert Hall. I wonder how often they have to replace this carpet. I wouldn't doubt if it was every year. There's a great story about the purple carpet and Pavarotti on the following webpage.
https://www.housedigest.com/905040/the-untold-truth-of-the-sydney-opera-house/

Oh look, some more steps.

The purple steps lead to the Concert Hall. We weren't allowed to take photos in the Concert Hall but here's a stock photo of what it looked like before being closed for two years for some serious acoustical refinements. This was part of their Decade of Renewal that costs over $300 million dollars. Read about it on the Opera House website. https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/our-story/decade-of-renewal.html
Another good website on the renewal is
https://stories.sydneyoperahouse.com/renewing-an-icon/

Photo from the Opera House website showing the changes to the Concert Hall. You might not notice much from these photos, but if you go to the website, you can see what all the changes were.

You might be surprised to find out that the roof of the Sydney Opera House is not one solid piece. It is made up of over a million small tiles arranged in a repeating chevron pattern.

The main reason for this design is that the roof is thought to be self-cleaning. Rain falls down through the network of tiles and it is supposed to take most of the grime and debris that builds up over time down with it.

Between the sails of the Concert Hall and the Joan Sutherland Theatre

Check out the design and arrangement of the roof tiles.

Looking toward downtown. The Sydney Tower Eye, tall tower in the background, was our final stop on this day's adventures.

Notice how the glass tilts out.

Next we headed into the Joan Sutherland theatre portion of the Opera House. A portrait of Joan Sutherland hangs in the theater's foyer. She performed at the theatre more than 250 times over the course 3 decades. Her last full-length dramatic performance at the age of 82 in 1990.