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Daily 9.30am-5pm; $7. Circular Quay or Martin Place CityRail. North of Martin Place, on the corner of Bridge and Phillip streets, is the Museum of Sydney . The site itself is the reason for the museum's existence, for here a ten-year archeological dig (1983-93) unearthed the foundations of the first Government House built by Governor Phillip in 1788, which was home to eight subsequent governors of NSW before it was demolished in 1846. The museum is totally original in its approach, presenting history in an interactive manner, through exhibitions, film, photography and multimedia, though you may come away feeling less well informed than you expected. A key feature of the museum are the special exhibitions, about four each year, which make for a fuller experience; these range in subject from Sydney's Art Deco architecture to exhibitions of Aboriginal art, so it's worth finding out what's on before you go. First Government Place , a public square in front of the museum, preserves the site of the original Government House: most of its foundations are marked out on the pavement. The museum itself is built of honey-coloured sandstone blocks, using sandstone tooling representative of the earliest days of the colony right up to modern times - you can trace the stylistic development from bottom to top. Near the entrance, Edge of the Trees , an emotive sculptural installation which was a collaboration between a European and an Aboriginal artist, conveys the complexity of a shared history. Entering the museum, you hear a dramatized dialogue between the Eora woman Patyegarang and the First Fleeter Lieutenant Dawes, which gives a strong impression of two cultures meeting and misunderstanding each other. If you decide to pay to get into the rest of the museum, it's best to go upstairs to the auditorium on level 2 and watch the fifteen-minute video on the museum first. Back on level 1 a video screen extends up through all three levels, showing images of the bush, sea and sandstone Sydney as it was before the arrival of Europeans. On level 2, recordings of Sydney Kooris (Aboriginal people) combine with video images to evoke a picture of these people. The dark and creepy Bond Store on level 3 is the storytelling part of the museum, where holographic "ghosts" relate tales of old Sydney as an ocean port. On the same level, a whole area is devoted to some rather wonderful chronological panoramas of Sydney Harbour, with views of the harbour itself from the windows. The museum also contains an excellent gift shop with a wide range of photos, artworks and books on Sydney.
Near the museum is the expensive, licensed MOS cafe, on First Government Place; usually filled with executives at lunchtime, it's agreeably peaceful for a coffee at other times.
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