The island’s cultural capital – and home to its last kings

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Centred snugly within a rolling landscape of hills, Kandy is the island’s most important historical and cultural city. Down its roads lurk an entire street of lawyers, another of fabric shops, and still another of hardware stores. In between are lost mansions, kovils, showrooms for white goods, gemstones, computers, mobiles, and shoes. Home to the famous Temple of the Tooth and a capacious lake, Kandy offers ample retail therapy, beauty salons, theatres for traditional dance and much more.

 

Dotted around it are a plentiful of other extraordinary places – Peradeniya Royal Botanical Gardens, the best botanical gardens in Asia;  Waruna’s cavernous Aladdin’s Cave of credible, marvellous and trustworthy discoveries; the island's only Tea and Railway Museum; Lankatilaka and Gadaladenyia Vihara, two remarkable medieval temples that blend Dravidian and Sinhalese architecture, with a dash of Chinese architectural motifs; Embekke Devale, the masterpiece of Delmada Devendra Mulachari, the Michelangelo of woodcarving; the lost fort of Balana; and the remarkable frescos at the Degaldoruwa Raja Maha Vihara

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