Dambulla
Five natural granite caves have served as a Buddhist place of worship for over 2,000 years – their interiors painted floor to ceiling in vibrant iconography and filled with more than 150 Buddha statues, making the Dambulla Cave Temple complex one of the most concentrated and visually extraordinary religious sites in the country. Most visitors […]
Polonnaruwa
The medieval capital of Sri Lanka at its most powerful – a compact, accessible archaeological site where the Gal Vihara’s four colossal Buddha figures carved from a single granite face in the 12th century represent some of the finest rock sculpture in Asian history. Exploring the site by bicycle through the ancient royal quarter, past […]
Anuradhapura
Sri Lanka’s oldest capital was the centre of a hydraulic civilisation for over a thousand years and produced some of the most ambitious sacred architecture in the ancient world – including the Ruwanwelisaya stupa, which rises 90 metres on solid brick. The Sri Maha Bodhi, a fig tree grown from a cutting of the original […]
Sigiriya
A 5th-century king built a palace on top of a 200-metre volcanic rock, decorated it with frescoes of celestial maidens halfway up the cliff face, and surrounded the base with elaborate formal water gardens. The climb takes about 45 minutes, the views from the top stretch across the entire Cultural Triangle plain, and the sheer […]
Kandy
The last royal capital of the Sinhalese kings sits in a highland valley around an artificial lake, and its centrepiece – the Sri Dalada Maligawa, or Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic – has been the most important Buddhist site in the world for over 1,500 years. The daily temple ceremonies, the evening Kandyan dance […]