Hill Country
The last kingdom, around a lake, in the hills
Kandy held out against European powers until 1815 and still feels like the island's cultural centre of gravity. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic sits on the lake at its heart, and the city is the gateway to the tea country and the starting point of the hill-country railway.
The Sri Dalada Maligawa houses a tooth relic of the Buddha and is the most venerated Buddhist site in the country. Time your visit to one of the three daily puja ceremonies, when the inner chamber is opened and the drummers play; arrive thirty minutes early and dress modestly.
Beyond the temple, Kandy is a walking city: the lake circuit, the covered market, the Kandy Garrison Cemetery, and an uphill climb to the Bahiravakanda Buddha for the view back over the rooftops.
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, six kilometres out of town, hold 147 acres of orchid house, giant bamboo, a cannonball tree avenue and an enormous Javan fig: an easy, shaded half-day.
Kandy is where most travellers pick up the train south. The Kandy–Nanu Oya–Ella line is slow, often full, and worth every minute; book reserved seats well in advance or take a second-class unreserved carriage and stand in the doorway with everyone else.
Cooler than the coast all year. Driest January to April; October and November bring the heaviest rain. The Esala Perahera festival falls in July or August.
Kandy is in Hill Country.
Advisory door-to-door estimates for typical road conditions, not live routing output.
Longer on Sunday evenings; the train is slower but scenic.
The train takes 6–7 hours and is the point of the journey.
Sri Lanka's most venerated Buddhist shrine, best seen at one of the three daily pujas when the drummers play and the inner chamber housing the relic is opened to the queue of pilgrims.
Good value
Six to seven hours of tea estates, tunnels, waterfalls and open doorways on the hill-country line between Kandy, Nanu Oya and Ella, routinely called one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, and for once the claim holds.
Good value
One hundred and forty-seven acres of orchid house, giant bamboo, palm avenues and an enormous Javan fig in a loop of the Mahaweli river, six kilometres outside Kandy.
Good value
The route almost every first-time visitor should take, in the order that makes geographic sense. Cultural Triangle, Kandy, the hill-country train to Ella, an elephant safari on the way down, and three nights on the south coast to finish. Nothing more than four hours in the car on any day.
Indicative price band: Mid-range per person.
For travellers who would rather walk in tea country than queue at a ruin. Kandy, the high estates around Nuwara Eliya, World's End at dawn, the train down to Ella, and then a fast drop to the south coast for two nights of doing nothing.
Indicative price band: Mid-range per person.
The full circuit, unhurried. Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa with time to actually look at them, three nights in the Cultural Triangle, Kandy, the tea country and Horton Plains, the train to Ella, a safari on the way down and three nights on the south coast to finish.
Indicative price band: Premium per person.
Built for June, July and August, when the south-west is wet and the east and north are at their best. Anuradhapura, the Jaffna peninsula, Pigeon Island's coral, Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya, finishing in Kandy. The Sri Lanka that returning travellers come back for.
Indicative price band: Mid-range per person.
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