University of Sydney

Australia’s oldest tertiary territory (1850), the University of Sydney has over 45,000 students and even boasts its own postcode. You don’t need to have a PhD to grab a free campus map and wander around. Flanked by two grand halls that wouldn’t be out of place in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, the Quadrangle has a Gothic Revival design that tips its mortarboard towards the stately colleges of Oxford. Also here is the arresting Nicholson Museum and the small University Art Gallery. Nearby, the Macleay Museum has a musty dead smell (old dons or a historic collection of taxidermied Australian fauna?). If you want to be sure you’ll see the innards of the usually locked Great Hall, take a guided tour.