Sydney – the biggest little city in the world?

But, strangely, a visit into Sydney suggests that it may be famous for all the wrong reasons.

Yes, the bridge is nice – but it's not as impressive as its reputation suggests. And the Opera House is a masterpiece of 1970s architecture but it has been long surpassed by other more impressive buildings.

So one might imagine that Sydney's reputation is based on past glories – and in that one would be right. But the city's superb marketing has, one immediately notices, focused on two recent past glories when the true strengths of this amazing town lie in a time long before the things most people know it for.

For central Sydney is, perhaps, the most complete Victorian Capital city remaining anywhere in the former Empire. Sandstone buildings in the grand style are simply superb. And it's almost as if Sydney is entirely a heritage site – even a change of use does not justify a change of façade.

There are other attractions: arriving in the Victorian underground station that is Museum, popping up into Liverpool Street, there is an easy familiarity to those used to London. Names such as Gresham Street act as a useful reminder that Sydney is the capital of an outpost and that settlers here wanted to be reminded of home.

Museum Station is perhaps more complete than almost any of London's remaining underground stations and is covered with period advertising, immediately providing a context missing from the London tube.

Coming out into Hyde Park (a small but nevertheless important park) two things immediately spring to mind: where are the people and where is the traffic? Sydney seems empty, even during the working day. At lunchtime, there are people walking but even then the streets are not crowded.

Around the city, there is an excellent public transport system. Buses, trains, trams (they call it light rail) and monorail all encourage non-car travel. And within the commercial district, most places are a short walk from each other – although that comment was met with some surprise by Sydney residents who, it appears, don't walk as much as the lack of traffic would suggest.

It's a fine line between history and modernity in Sydney. Every street corner turns up another excellent building sometimes like the old Police Court still doing its thing in an old building or the old Department Store which has been converted internally to the new High Court. Only the Family Court is in a new office block and it seems remarkably characterless.

It's not all sweetness and light in the city's buildings: there are one or two modernisations that are candidates for the worst buildings in the world - and a huge afront to one fantastically ornate frontage is the disgracefully prominent McDonald's sign that tastelessly and arrogantly overpowers an otherwise interesting building.

But even these things are not the most striking about Sydney: it's got a tiny Chinatown – but some of the best Cantonese food outside Hong Kong – and the tim sum restaurants are a little bit of Wanchai with trolleys and constant attention being part of the fun. And in this pocket-sized capital, there are discrete Spanish and other districts.

A monorail makes a loop around part of the city, with an automated commentary. A light rail system (not quite a train, and not quite a tram) tracks through several districts the CityRail under/overground electric railway links inner and outer areas. The light rail system even makes a point of posting notices saying that cycles are always welcome subject to their being space available. Take that, London!

There is another significant difference between Sydney and London – and it's not the fact that Bondi Beach with its various attractions are just a short scooter-ride out of the city centre. It's Sydney's people. Is it possible that there is a concentration of nicer people anywhere on earth? Aussies from Melbourne and Perth say Sydney people are rude. It's difficult to imagine that there is anywhere that can be more polite or courteous. Standing at the most inconvenient places to get photographs, people actually waited instead of walking into shot.

Read that again: people walking in their lunch breaks or on their way to work actually stopped walking, just so that someone else could get the photo he wanted. In London, if you stop some moron just knocks you over and swears at you for getting under his feet as you fall.

Cars wait patiently at pedestrian crossings – even when there is no one left to cross. No one hoots their horn if someone is a bit dozy as the traffic lights change. Actually, there is so little traffic that one of the great puzzles of this city is why it has pedestrian controlled traffic crossings at all. In the middle of the week, in the middle of the working day, it's like the City of London at 7 am on a Sunday morning (well, not quite but you get the idea). Take that, Geneva!

And talking of Sundays, the city is full of churches, almost everywhere one looks, and there is no politically correct nonsense here: “Merry Christmas” scream the banners hanging from the street lights in early December: take that, New York!

The Harbour is more of a passage – but it's got history and it has a railway station, and ferries and more fantastic buildings all around it. And that Bridge and the Opera House and a waterfront gardens and .... Take that, Milan!

Are we sounding excited enough yet?

Yes, there are shopping centres – and Sydney is not a cheap town to shop in – and there are smart bars and the inevitable coffee chains (plus, it has to be said, that Sydney institution the Italian café). But there are also traditional pubs where a beer (in a strange sized glass called a schooner which is three quarters of a pint and therefore not in any way related to litres, either) is significantly cheaper than in the smarter, more pretentious bars that have sprung up). And food is quite simply amazing: Sydney is a melting pot of cultures – hence the lack of political correctness: in the UK “fusion” means putting ginger and spring onion with lemon grass under the skin of a chicken and steaming it – or some such. In Sydney, there is no such thing as fusion – everything is possible and there are, simply, no demarcation lines even in apparently simple pub food. In restaurants, it's almost as if the ingredients have been drawn in a raffle and someone with a sense of adventure has merged them in the kitchen. Take that, Paris!

And this is all before we mention the other reason Sydney is famous: Bondi Beach. Sun, sand, surf and - oh, think of another word beginning with S. It's all here, in a fun-filled, action packed district that explains why so many Aussies seem born to back-pack around the world. This may be where the wanderlust starts. And as the sun goes down, and the evening chill sets in, cocktails and another stunning meal in totally unpretentious surroundings as surfers without regard for any generational divide walk home, barefoot through the streets with a board under their arm, give more than a hint as to why this place exercises a magnetic pull. Take that, Malibu!

Sydney? The Harbour Bridge and the Opera House may be the reasons you choose to go there. But they won't be the reasons choose to stay.