Pyrmont by Convido

Pyrmont by Convido sits a hundred metres from Darling Harbour on the Pyrmont peninsula, with the convention centre effectively next door and a covered walkway running to it. The city centre is seven hundred metres east, the light rail is three minutes on foot, and Chinatown, Central Station and the fish market are all a short walk or a single stop away.

The building is an 1883 wool store, built to hold fifty thousand bales and converted to apartments in 1995. The neo-classical facade survived a fire in the 1930s and was rebuilt to the original design, and inside you still get the original tallowwood floors and exposed ironbark columns. Very little else in Sydney feels like this, and nothing else in this collection does.

A twenty-five-metre heated indoor lap pool runs from six in the morning until midnight, with a spa and separate saunas beside it. The gym is cardio-led with a limited weights set, so plan around that if you train seriously. A small meeting room takes up to six.

A concierge and a round-the-clock reception look after the front of house. Parking is off site at a nearby garage rather than in the building.