Dambulla
The Dambulla Cave Temple is older than its more famous neighbours and, in some ways, more powerful. Five natural granite caves have been used as places of Buddhist worship and meditation for over 2,000 years – their ceilings and walls painted continuously across that entire span, creating a living historical record of Sri Lankan Buddhist […]
Kandy
Sri Lanka’s last royal capital sits in the central highlands at the meeting point of the island’s cultural and spiritual identity – a city built around a lake, anchored by the Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, which houses what is believed to be a tooth of the Buddha and has […]
Sigiriya
It sounds almost impossible when you describe it: a 5th-century king built a palace on top of a 200-metre volcanic rock, surrounded it with formal water gardens at the base, decorated the cliff face with frescoes of heavenly maidens, and inscribed a mirror-smooth plaster wall with centuries of admiring visitor poetry. And yet, here it […]
Polonnaruwa
Sri Lanka’s medieval capital is the most accessible and the most immediately impressive of the ancient cities – a compact, well-preserved site where the Gal Vihara’s four enormous Buddha figures, carved from a single granite face in the 12th century, represent one of the finest sculptural achievements in Asian history. The Royal Palace ruins, the […]
Anuradhapura
Sri Lanka’s first great capital was founded more than 2,300 years ago and governed by a succession of kings who built on a scale that modern engineers still struggle to fully explain. The city’s ancient stupas – including the Ruwanwelisaya, which rises 90 metres above the plain – were constructed from solid brick with a […]