Daily Detours for the Week of July 17

Swap your tired Monday gym routine for something a little left-of-field at The Fitness Playground — their Circus Fit class is so much fun you won’t even know you’re working out. Most of the action takes place on a low-hanging trapeze (nothing too Cirque du Soleil), focusing on toughening up your core to make you stronger and leaner. The Fitness Playground have somewhat crazy classes happening at all three of their locations (Surry Hills, Newtown and Marrickville), but Surry Hills is the only place you’ll find Circus Fit. Your coach will be Laura Basta — she’s performed as an acrobat and circus entertainer all over the world. Warning: you won’t want to go back to your regular exercise schedule.

Life is short, eat dessert first. After bailing from the office at a reasonable hour, head to Gelato Messina (in Surry Hills or Darlinghurst) and get yourself a sundae made from the daily special. Delicious frozen treat in hand, stroll down to Golden Age Cinema for a movie screening in a beautifully-restored building. Throughout April and May, Golden Age is celebrating a decade of the Sydney Film Prize (part of the Sydney Film Festival) by screening the short films that have won the award in previous years. There’s also a double feature screening this Tuesday: Arabian Nights Volume I and Arabian Nights Volume II, one after the other. Directed by Miguel Gomes, this film trilogy (Arabian Nights Volume III is screening the next day) is a collection of short stories that create a vivid portrait of Portugal, an anguished country in economic strife.

For the first time, The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of Sherlock-related objects and manuscripts — and an interactive experience that lets you conduct experiments and solve a mystery — is venturing beyond North America for a five-month run at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum until October 29, 2017. For those keen on delving into the items behind the 127-year-old literary and pop culture legend, prepare to cast your eyes over 350 different bits and pieces, including first editions, props, costumes, period artefacts and one of the world’s most accurate recreations of 221B Baker Street (that is, the place that Holmes and John Watson call home). If chasing clues and figuring out puzzles is more your thing, then don your deerstalker to not only discover the science behind his investigative ways, but put it to use. You’ll become Sherlock’s eyes and ears on a new case, because, yes, the game’s afoot.

Need an escape from the winter weather? Then escape the chill, and nestle into a warm, dark cinema, where you can watch movies from places even colder than here. Returning to Palace Cinemas, the Volvo Scandinavian Film Festival will once again showcase the best of Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic cinema, from award-winning dramas to esoteric comedies and the very best of Nordic Noir. To give you an idea of what to expect, one of the big highlights from last year’s program was the Golden Globe-nominated The Fencer, a Finnish-German-Estonian co-production — dubbed by Finland Today as “the best Finnish film in a decade” — about a fencing instructor hiding from Soviet forces in Estonia in the years after the war. With this played alongside oddball Icelandic rom-com The Together Project which took home a screenplay prize at Cannes, and the excruciatingly tense Danish drama Land of Mine, you’ll be set for the Scandi trip of cinephiles’ dreams.

A brand new escape room-style adventure has landed in Sydney, and instead of trapping you within four walls, it challenges you to get into a room, steal a piece of art and get out with it. Art Heist is the latest project of the Jetpack Theatre Collective, who specialise in out-of-the-box theatrical experiences. Before now, they’ve managed to chase their audiences through mazes, row them across lakes and transform them into a herd of stampeding rhinos.

For Art Heist, Jetpack has built Wade Gallery, a fictional art space in Dulwich Hill. Inside lies a masterpiece titled The Fat Dragon, which is coveted by Adrian Bailey, an unknown benefactor. Acting as one of his thieves, you’ll have 45 minutes to steal it for him. Along the way, you’ll be deciphering clues, getting around guards, avoiding alarms and squeezing through air vents. Take note, the guards aren’t just statues or robots, but actual actors, who’ll be responding in real time to your moves, so don’t get caught.

Spend a Saturday getting your hands dirty, or rather, floury. Pasta Emilia, which moved from its original home in Bronte to Surry Hills in 2012, is not just a restaurant, but a cooking school as well. With local, organic ingredients at your fingertips, you’ll learn how to make pasta the traditional way. That includes creating the best flour mix, fashioning it into dough and stretching it into sheets. Alessandro Grisendi, who’s been making pasta by hand for fifteen years, will teach you how to make all kinds of pasta, from ravioli and cappelletti, to linguine and strozzapreti. And when your work is done, you’ll sit down to a hearty lunch, including pasta, a veggie salad and glass of organic wine.

Heading to the East Sydney Hotel is like going on a day trip to the country. Not because of its distance from the CBD, but because of its self-proclaimed title as Sydney’s ‘last country pub’. The Woolloomooloo venue is filled with timeless memorabilia and mismatched timber furniture, and has a classic pub menu with some decent craft brews on-tap (along with all the classics). It’s the perfect atmosphere for the upcoming winter months, and for a spot of afternoon jazz. Sundays bring live jazz and a great opportunity to chill out and get away from the chaos of inner city living. Cool cats Geoff Bull and his band the Finer Cuts (veterans of the Sydney jazz scene) play from 5pm until 8pm, creating a fluid set of smooth tunes and frenetic beats.

Personalise your next adventure via The Playmaker, driven by Mazda3.

By James Whitton, Jasmine Crittenden, Tom Clift and Sarah Ward.