Occupying Sri Lanka’s south-west corner, Galle is thought to have been an important trading port for millennia, with a history dating back to the reign of King Solomon in the 10th century BC and remained as Ceylon’s most important harbour until the 19th century until it was overtaken by the growing commercial exploits of Colombo. It has expanded from its early origins and expanded inland to become the modern city that it is today, Sri Lanka’s fourth-largest.
While the majority of the city has little to differentiate it from other towns, tourists flock here to visit the old Dutch Quarter, Fort, an area strangely detached from the rest of Galle on a small peninsular surrounded by impressive stone walls and a chain of bastions.
What you will find inside the fortifications is Sri Lanka’s best-preserved colonial town; a grid of streets lined with beautiful white and pale, pastel yellow villas topped with red-tile roofs. In stark contrast to the busy, tuk-tuk-filled streets of the main city, Fort is like stepping back in time to an ambiguous European settlement. At the right time of day, it is a magically serene place to amble around, taking in the atmospheric old streets, quaint churches and wonderful seafood scene.
Getting to Galle
Galle is best reached from Colombo as it is served by both train and bus routes from the city. Non-stop, comfortable air-conditioned coaches leave Colombo’s southern suburb of Maharagama approximately every 30 minutes between 5am and 5pm, at the cost of around Rs.400. This bus is much faster (1hr 15) than taking a cheap local bus (3 hours journey time) as it uses the new E01 highway rather than the slow two-lane coastal road. Buses along the southern coast towards Weligama and Mirissa leave every 15 minutes.
Trains between Colombo Fort station and Galle leave 5 – 10 times per day and can take anywhere between 2 hours and 3.5 hours.
Galle Fort
At 9.33am on 26th December 2004, a devastating natural disaster hit the coast of Sri Lanka. Just a few miles off the coast of Sumatra, an enormous earthquake had unleashed energy 550 million times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb sending shockwaves around the world. It only took 90-minutes for the Tsunami to hit the Sri Lankan coast.
In the wave’s midst, entire villages and towns vanished. A wall of water travelling at 600mph rose from the shallows and smashed its way through the buildings and coconut palms. Entire boats were shipwrecked inland, buildings were scattered and cars, tuk-tuks, and remnants of hotels were found miles from their original locations. It was the deadliest day in Sri Lanka’s history, even during a civil war that was currently tearing the country apart. 35,000 people lost their lives in the government-controlled territory while a further 19,000 died in the LTTE-held northern provinces.
Travelling down the coastal A2 now in our mini-bus there isn’t much indication that this entire stretch of land had once been destroyed. Occasionally you will spot a little rubble and sheets of corrugated iron along the foreshore, but if it wasn’t for the beautiful Peraliya memorial – a towering Buddha statue erected at the spot where the tsunami washed away a packed commuter train with the loss of over 1200 lives, the world’s worst-ever train disaster – you wouldn’t know what had occurred here.
In the decade and a half since the disaster, Galle has been completely restored. The city that had been all but demolished has been nurtured back to life and is once again Sri Lanka’s 4th largest. The train station was rebuilt, the cricket ground completely brought back to life, and the streets of the town centre now bustled with traffic, cafes and glossy new hotels.
On this section of coast, only Galle’s Fort had survived the sea’s assault, sitting high on its promontory beyond the cricket pitch, surrounded by thick stone walls. It’s easy to see how the structure ended that day intact. Passing through the Fort’s gate, a small passage beneath a little archway, you find yourself in another little town, one that encompasses just 89 acres and feels completely separate from the main city.
I arrive mid-afternoon, just as the air is beginning to cool and the previously quiet Fort begins to thrum with life. Once the day’s heat starts to dissipate, tourists and locals alike clamber up on top of the walls to walk or sit and stare out at the ocean. From the main gates and clock tower, added by the British in 1873 on the spot where the Dutch built 3 brutally impressive bastions named Sun, moon, and star, it’s possible to walk almost the entirety of the wall in one continuous path past all 14 of the towns bastions, most of them still with archaic names like Clippenberg, Akersloot and Zwart.
Despite the names, this tiny peninsula wasn’t originally Dutch. Many are convinced that Galle was once the biblical port of Tarshish, where King Solomon sent ships to procure splendours such as elephants, ivory and peacocks and remained an important stop for traders plying the route between India and China until the Europeans first arrived in 1505. They finally settled here for good in 1587, not before looting the city’s warehouses and settling the harbour ablaze.
After a bloody, 18-day siege, the Dutch took control of the region in 1640, choosing Galle as their seat of government and setting up a trade route to supply Europe with spices and elephants. As you can imagine, the native Kandyans didn’t take kindly to the loss of this land and following King Rajassinha setting fire to the coast in 1656 despite the Dutch trying to win him over by showering him with gifts, they decided to expand the fortifications, just in case he returned.
Within the walls, there is still a small Dutch town, as if this period of the 17th century has been trapped in time and perfectly preserved. Although the crumbling old hospital has been transformed into a series of up-scale restaurants, the Dutch Reformed Church, or Kerk, remains much as it did then. As do the colonial mansions, cottages, and terraces that line the pretty, cobbled streets with their shuttered windows, fading pastel facades and fancy verandas, although these are now mostly home to boutique hotels rather than traders, diplomats and governors.
Even the cavernous warehouses that once belonged to the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or Dutch East India Company) sit unchanged in the centre of town, empty and waiting to be bought and turned into the next hip restaurant or foreign-owned hotel. I find myself wandering around one, led by a security guard that said he didn’t mind indulging my curiosity. Walter is dressed in a perfectly pressed uniform – a beige shirt with starched brown embellishments on the shoulders – with a proud smile as he guides me from room to room and up crooked, broken wooden staircases. He spends most days sitting at a table in front of the missing front door, ensuring that no one wanders in unaccompanied. Guarding emptiness, a custodian of nothing. There isn’t a great deal to see; litter, broken furniture and discarded tobacco boxes. A shipping manifesto remains on the wall with information chalked onto the blackboard as if the ships are waiting to return. On one wall, a paper banner reads ‘Happy New Year 2007’, giving the feeling that this building was abandoned quickly on the 31st December 2006.
The contents that are missing from these warehouses can be bought around town. There is an antique shop on almost every street selling plundered Georgian wares and hawkers stand atop the bastions trying to flog worn Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie coins. Even a little enclave of Dutch culture can be found in Galle. Look carefully and you will find a bakkerij selling bread and vendors dishing up breudher and edam while beside the walls, women make intricate lace to see to passing tourists.
The only Dutch thing that has been lost from the region are Dutch people. For a time, Sri Lanka’s smallest minority, the Dutch Burghers – Sri Lankans of Dutch descent – were numerous, occupying important government roles under the British. Being neither fully European nor fully Sri Lankan, Galle was an important spot for them, a place that mirrored their mix of cultures. However, the majority left in the 1950s, disillusioned by Sinhalese nationalist laws.
Nowadays, despite half a century of independence, Galle is still dominated by foreigners. Over the course of the last decade a foreign influx of visitors – mostly wealthy Brits with a keen interest in arts and crafts – has brought money to the region, transforming Galle Fort from a sleepy and dishevelled town into Sri Lanka’s most cosmopolitan enclave, filled with stylish boutiques, grand hotels and chic galleries. Along Pedlar Street alone you can find cool cafes, upmarket clothing stores and handicraft shops. Since my first visit to Sri Lanka in 2016, I’ve had mounted and framed posters from ‘Stick No Bills’ – a store selling incredible Ceylon themed prints – on my hallway wall.
It’s these disparate influences that make Galle so beguiling; the mix of Sinhalese and European cultures; the contrast of the cool and modern with the antique is unlike anywhere else in Sri Lanka. It’s neither completely Dutch nor Sri Lankan, British or Portuguese. Macaques sit atop the red George V pillar boxes that are dotted around town while peddlers come wheeling through the streets to sell bread from their converted tuk-tuks with tunes blaring out similar to those blasting from ice cream vans. Street signs are in any combination of Tamil, Sinhalese, and English and the architecture is just as confused: there are 2 churches, the old Kerk and the stone-clad British All Saints as well as a Buddhist temple whose white stupa stands out amongst the colonial low-rises, and even a beautiful mosque that looks more like a baroque church than the usual building with a dome and minarets.
There’s a sort of magic to Galle and it’s hard not to be enchanted by its spell. As the sun slowly falls from the sky to be swallowed by the horizon, I climb the rampart walls beside the old lighthouse. Most of the town appears to be here with me. On the green, howls of victory and defeat from teenagers battling in an intense game of cricket while Buddhist monks watch on, their orange robes whipping in the wind.
For a few rupees, teenagers leap backwards from Flag Rock, arms outstretched and legs tucked up to their stomachs, plunging into the waves below. Muslim families emerge from the white, latticed mosque and sit on the grass with their rolled-up prayer mats amongst the snake charmers and musicians, waiting for that evening’s call to prayer. When the ethereal wailing finally reverberates around the Fort like a curtain call for the day, everything has turned a pale, dusty purple. The hand-holding couples and wide-eyed tourists begin to dissipate. The boys with their worn willow cricket bats disappear into the twilight and the walls are silent once again.
Where to Stay in Galle
Fairway Sunset
Located 10-minute’s drive along the coastal road from the Fort’s entrance, this hotel overlooking Dewata beach is one of the area’s best budget options. All 65 rooms are clean and modern with a large number of them offering perfect sea views over the bay. The on-site, rooftop restaurant serves a good mix of local and western cuisine and is ideal for sundowner cocktails.
Antic Guesthouse
Embracing Galle’s newly-found influx of artists, this beautifully renovated colonial mansion has shutters and doors spattered with paint and communal areas bursting with rustic, local art. Each room in this boutique guesthouse is individually styled with the higher-priced accommodation featuring open balconies strewn with cushions and hammocks where you can relax with a view of Fort’s narrow, cobbled streets.
Galle Fort Hotel
The Galle Fort Hotel is a boutique hotel with 13 rooms. They all have four-poster beds, and are unique. The Loft Suites are split level; the Admiral Cheng Ho suite is dedicated to the Chinese explorer who visited Galle in the 14th century; the Porcelain Suite has a collection of Dutch pottery; and the ornate Grand Apartments used to once be the home of a gem merchant.
Things to do in Galle Fort
While there isn’t a great deal to do or see in Galle Fort beyond a few quirky museums and impressive colonial buildings, the real joy comes from spending a couple of days soaking up the area’s beautiful atmosphere, walking the pretty streets and savouring the town’s slow pace, something you are unlikely to find elsewhere in Sri Lanka’s tourist hotspots.
Visit the Lighthouse
Guarding the jagged rocks that line the southern point of Galle’s coastline, Pointe De Galle Light is Sri Lanka’s oldest lighthouse. There has been a structure on this spot ever since 1848, although the current 27m working lighthouse dates from 1939. It is a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Dutch Reformed Church
While the church isn’t particularly impressive from the outside – it’s a great white slab of a building, the only ornate part of the façade being the triangular gables that bookend the red-tiled roof – however, the interior is sparse and cavernous with the floor etched memorials to the city’s early Dutch settlers the southern wall dominated by a carved dedication to E.A.H Abraham, former commander of the city which is decorated with a skull, armour and what is left of his baptism shirt.
The Groote Kerk was constructed in 1755 on the site of an earlier Portuguese Convent and is possibly one of the town’s most striking buildings.
Walk The Ramparts
A series of bastions and walls surround the Fort area of Galle. Existing since 1589 when the town was established by the Portuguese and later expanded by the Dutch when, in 1640, they captured the city following a four-day siege, the fortifications enclose the entirety of Galle’s sea-facing promontory. There are 13 bastions in all, evocatively named with titles like Neptune, Aurora and Moon. It is possible to walk an unbroken path along the old fortifications anti-clockwise from Star Bastion, past the lighthouse to Aurora, which is the perfect way to get an overview of the town and catch your bearings.
While this walk is enjoyable at any time of day, it is best done at sunset when an orange glow hangs over the Indian Ocean and almost the entire town is drawn to the bastions for a festival atmosphere of street food, cricket and mingling while cliff divers fling themselves from Flag Rock into the seafoam below.
Historical Mansion Museum
Galle has a number of quirky – and often quite dismal – museums, however, the idiosyncratic Historical Mansion Museum is the most entertaining of the bunch. Originally set up by Mr Gaffar, who spent half a century building up this eccentric collection of junk, bric-a-brac and trinkets, the exhibits are more a weirdly compelling collection of curiosities than a coherent showcase of local history.
Nearby is the rather lacklustre Maritime Archeology Museum, a rather cheerless and dull assemblage of old rope, pots, and waxworks that is best avoided.
Where: 39 Leyn Baan St.
When: Daily 9am – 6pm (closed for Friday Prayers 12pm – 2pm)
Sudharmalaya Vihara
The small, bright-white stupa of Sudharmalaya Vihara stands out amongst the churches and colonial architecture of Galle Fort but the Buddhist temple has been located on this corner of Rampart and Parawa Street since 1889. The buildings small belfry indicated that this was once a Christian house of worship but it now contains Buddhist paraphernalia such as a large, reclining Lord Buddha and several smaller statues. Guests are free to enter and wander around the temple, which also hosts regular yoga classes in its prayer hall.
Hit the Beach at Unawatuna
Despite its coastal location, the beaches around Galle are few and far between, other than small patches of sand beyond the Fort’s ramparts and a narrow stretch of unnamed beach along Matara road occupied mostly by fisherman’s huts and oruwas.
However, just a 15-minute drive east is the intimate beach of Unawatuna, a small, horseshoe-shaped cove not much more than a kilometre in length, terminated by the picturesque Rumassala, a grand outcrop of rock thought to have been left by the monkey god Hanuman. Both Unawatuna and nearby Jungle beach – a quieter spot with clear turquoise sea backed by dense jungle – are great for snorkelling and the perfect place to spend an evening, drinking at beach bars or enjoying a meal of freshly-caught fish while gazing out into the Indian Ocean.
Where to Eat & Drink in Galle Fort
As the Fort’s interior continues to undergo regeneration and gentrification, there are myriad dining options within the area’s sturdy walls, including an influx of high end, sophisticated eateries. Don’t worry though, there are still plenty of budget cafes, guesthouses and locally-owned cafes serving up cheap Sri Lankan cuisine.
The Tuna and the Crab
The recently renovated Galle Dutch Hospital is occupied by a number of great restaurants, but the most notable has to be The Tuna and the Crab in the complexes eastern wing. Owned by former Sri Lanka cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara and the island’s most renowned chef Dharshan Munidasa, this is the sister restaurant to Colombo’s Ministry of Crab, serving up a mix of seafood, from lagoon crab to sushi, in an elegant setting.
Where: Dutch Hospital Shopping Precinct, Hospital St
When: Daily 12pm – 9.30pm
A Minute by Tuk Tuk
Also situated in the Dutch Hospital complex overlooking the rampart walls with splendid sea views, A Minute By Tuk Tuk specialises in luxurious, contemporary variations of classic Sri Lankan dishes in the form of tapas or sumptuous main courses such as Wild for a While, black pork & thibbotu mallum served with cashew ghee rice and tempered manioc and Takka Takka, the restaurants own take on kottu roti.
Where: Dutch Hospital Shopping Precinct, Hospital St
When: Daily 11am – 11pm
Galle Fort Hotel
Even if your budget doesn’t quite stretch to staying the night at one of Galle’s more up-market hotels, it is worth stopping by the luxurious Galle Fort Hotel’s colonial-era veranda bar. It is easily the most atmospheric and memorable places in town for a nightcap. Make sure to try their signature cocktail.
Where: 28 Church St
When: Daily 11am – Late
Poonie’s Kitchen
Hidden away in a cool little boho-styled courtyard beside the adjoining Mimi Mango lifestyle store, Poonie’s is the place to visit for health nuts and those that have had their fill of curries and string hoppers. The light menu leans more towards South East Asia than Ceylon, featuring Thai noodles, Vietnamese pho and colourful salad bowls that wouldn’t be out of place in Bali.
Where: 63 Pedlar St
When: Mon to Sat 10am – 5pm
Isle of Gelato
Isle of Gelato’s Sri Lankan owners, Shalini and Suranjan, spent 3 months in Bologna learning how to make traditional gelato before bringing their new-found skills back home to Galle. They aim to blend these Italian ice cream making techniques with local flavours, such as lemon curd, lychee, and passionfruit.
Where: 60a Pedlar St
When: Daily 10am – 10pm
When is the Best Time to Visit Galle?
Due to its location just north of the equator, Sri Lanka is temperate all year round. However, it is affected by two separate monsoon seasons during the year. With southeast being hit from April until September and the northeast from November until March. Head to Galle between December and March for the best chance of some sun.
I visited Galle as a guest of Sri Lanka Tourism. However, all views are my own.
