Balmain occupies a hilly peninsula jutting into the harbour just west of the Anzac Bridge, a former shipbuilding and working-class stronghold that has become one of Sydney's most desirable village-like neighbourhoods. The grit of the docks has long given way to a wealthy, faintly bohemian creative set, but the bones of the old suburb remain: steep streets of nineteenth-century workers' cottages and grand terraces running down to the water on either side.
Darling Street is the spine, climbing the ridge from the ferry wharf at one end and lined with cafés, bookshops, boutiques and an unusual density of historic pubs — Balmain once claimed more hotels per head than anywhere in the country, and plenty of the handsome old corner ones survive. On Saturdays the long-running Balmain Market fills the grounds of a Darling Street church, and the surrounding waterside parks make the most of the peninsula's setting.
Half the pleasure is simply walking the backstreets and the foreshore, with harbour views opening up between the houses. The most scenic way to arrive is by ferry from Circular Quay to one of the peninsula's several wharves.