Sri Lanka’s northern capital carries a cultural texture entirely distinct from the rest of the island – Tamil heritage, Hindu temple architecture, the particular cuisine of its peninsula and a coastline of stark, salt-flat beauty that feels nothing like the south. The Jaffna Fort, Dutch-built and ocean-facing, is one of the best-preserved colonial fortifications in…

Sigiriya’s rock fortress rises 200 metres above the surrounding jungle like a misplaced mesa, its 5th-century frescoes and mirror wall inscriptions representing one of the ancient world’s most ambitious architectural and artistic projects. Nearby Dambulla holds five cave temples sealed within a living rock face – murals and statues accumulating over 22 centuries of unbroken…

Kandy sits in a natural bowl of green hills surrounding a lake that was artificially constructed in 1807 by the last Kandyan king – the city’s geography is itself a royal design decision. Beyond the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy rewards wandering: brass-work lanes, spice market alleyways, botanical gardens of extraordinary scale and…

Smaller and more intimate than Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa is best explored by bicycle at a slow, unhurried pace – gliding between moonstone doorsteps, colossal standing Buddhas and the haunting ruin of a royal bath still ringed by carved stone. The Gal Vihara rock sculptures, cut directly into a single granite face, are among the finest stone…

Sri Lanka’s first great capital is a city built at a civilisational scale – massive dagobas visible from kilometres away, monastic complexes that once housed thousands of monks and a sacred Bodhi tree grown from a cutting of the original under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. The hydraulic engineering here, an ancient network of reservoirs…