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It's almost an hour from The Rocks to Balmain by the #440 bus, via Leichhardt , Sydney's "Little Italy", where the famous Norton Street strip of cafes and restaurants runs off ugly Parramatta Road . Leichhardt is very much up and coming - shiny, trendy, Italian cafes keep popping up all along the strip, in the wake of a new upmarket cinema complex , a new bookstore, Beurkelow's, and a new shopping centre and showcase for the Italian community, the Italian Forum . Arranged around a central square on two colonnaded levels, the Forum houses upmarket fashion shops (several featuring Italian fashion) on the top level, while downstairs is a host of mostly Italian eateries with al fresco tables on the square - huge for lunch on a Sunday. An Italian Cultural Centre and a local library branch are also planned to open here. The best Italian cafe in Leichhardt, however, is still the lively, much-loved and enduring Bar Italia , a fifteen-minute walk further down Norton at the extent of the tempting array of eateries. From Leichhardt, the #440 bus continues to Darling Street, which runs from Rozelle right down to Balmain's waterfront. Rozelle, once very much the down-at-heel, poorer sister to Balmain is now emergently trendy with the Sydney College of the Arts and the Sydney Writers' Centre based here, as well as lots of cafes, bookshops, speciality shops, gourmet grocers, restaurants, made-over pubs, and designer home-goods stores. Rozelle also boasts the new, very ritzy Rozelle Bay Super Yacht Marina on James Craig Road; enjoy the views with a glass of wine at the bar-restaurant Liquidity , with its huge glassfront overlooking the water. At weekends, a flea market takes over the grounds of Rozelle Primary School on Darling Street, near Victoria Road (Sat & Sun 9am-4pm). Further on towards Balmain, Elkington Park has the quaint Dawn Fraser Swimming Pool , an old-fashioned harbour pool named after the famous Australian Olympic swimmer.
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