Two Days in Galle Fort

Galle Fort rewards the slow traveller. Inside its sea-worn ramparts the streets are too narrow for hurry, and the best of the old town reveals itself only to those willing to lose the map for an afternoon.

Start early. Before nine, the lighthouse end of the fort belongs to the locals — fishermen mending nets, schoolchildren in white, and the long shadows of the ramparts falling across empty lanes. Walk the full wall while it is cool; it takes about forty minutes and frames the whole town against the ocean.

By midday the heat pushes you indoors, which is the point. Galle keeps its treasures behind shutters: a gem museum in a Dutch merchant''s house, a tea boutique pouring single-estate brews, a bookshop that smells of old paper and cardamom. Linger over a long lunch and let the worst of the sun pass.

Return to the wall for sunset. The whole town does, and so should you — the sky over the lighthouse turns the colour of king coconut, and for twenty minutes Galle is the most beautiful place in Sri Lanka.