Galle Holidays

Galle might be on Sri Lankan soil, but it’s got a European streak running through it. The city, on the country’s south coast, has Portuguese, Dutch and English chapters in its history. Mosques, Buddhist temples and Roman Catholic churches are all neighbours, and the old quarter’s wrapped in a centuries-old curtain wall. Local culture stretches all the way to the surrounding beaches, too, with sun-seekers sharing the shoreline with swaying stilt fishermen.

The neighbourhood known as Galle Fort is ripe for exploring. Most of the city’s historic gems are gathered here, and the whole area’s got a UNESCO badge pinned to its chest. The whitewashed lighthouse is a popular photo spot. And, a walk along the fort’s weather-worn ramparts takes you to a clock tower and the terracotta-topped Dutch hospital. The sky turns a shade of tangerine at sunset, and you’ll get widescreen panoramas from the seaside Triton Bastion.

Leave the old quarter behind, and you can spend the day on one of the nearby beaches. They’re popular with Sri Lanka’s iconic stilt fishermen, who perch on wooden poles in the shallows for hours on end. From Dewata Beach, you can see Galle Fort across the bay. Keep following the coastline down, and you’ll see Western-style hotels start to crop up close to secluded pockets of sand, like Jungle Beach. Bowl-shaped Unawatuna Beach looks like it belongs on a postcard, and is a great jumping-off point for whale-watching trips and scuba diving.