Walk the ramparts of Galle Fort

What the experience is

Galle Fort occupies a rocky peninsula on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka, 113 kilometres from Colombo. The Portuguese built the first fort here in 1588. The Dutch took it and from 1649 rebuilt it on a far larger scale, raising the main walls in 1663. The British held it from 1796. The result, 52 hectares of streets enclosed by ramparts and fourteen bastions, was listed by UNESCO in 1988 as the Old Town of Galle and its Fortifications, which UNESCO describes as the best example of a fortified city built by Europeans in South and South-East Asia. The walls largely withstood the tsunami of December 2004.

The walk follows the top of the ramparts around the seaward side. It is flat, open and free.

The route

Begin at the landward end, where the three great bastions named Sun, Moon and Star face the modern town across a cricket ground, with the clock tower of 1882 above them. Walk west and south along the wall above the sea, past the Neptune and Triton bastions, to Flag Rock at the southern tip, where signals were once given to ships. Continue to Point Utrecht, where the white lighthouse stands; the present tower dates from 1938. Beside it is the Meeran Mosque of 1904, which looks at first like a baroque church.

Then drop into the streets. The Dutch Reformed Church, remodelled between 1752 and 1755, has a floor of carved gravestones. All Saints Church, of 1871, is Victorian Gothic. The Old Gate, finished in 1669, still carries the monogram of the Dutch East India Company on its inner face. Between them run lanes of low houses with pillared verandas, many now shops, cafés and small hotels.

When to go

The dry season on this coast runs from December to April. Walk in the last hour and a half of daylight, when the heat eases and much of the town comes up onto the walls to watch the sun set over the sea. Early morning is the quiet alternative.

Good to know

The ramparts have no railings and little shade. The fort is still a lived-in town, with a courthouse, schools, a mosque and a temple, and deserves to be treated as one. A night inside the walls is worth more than a day visit.

Why OKYTO recommends it

It is among the finest surviving European fortified towns in Asia, and it has stayed a town. Galle is the natural base for the architecture of Geoffrey Bawa, whose garden at Lunuganga is up the coast, and it pairs with a leopard safari in Yala.