Galle's story runs far deeper than its Dutch walls: 2nd-century BC rock temples inland, Arab merchants working the harbour long before Portugal arrived, and British churches, clock towers and steamer hotels layered on top. Three days on what the rampart walk skips.
Cave temple carved under a granite overhang, monastic since the 2nd century BC. A 9m reclining Buddha and Kandyan-period murals in red and ochre line the shrine, and the ola-leaf library still holds palm manuscripts. Open 06:00–18:00.
Forested headland the Ramayana names as the piece of Himalaya that Hanuman dropped while carrying healing herbs; botanists still log plants growing nowhere else on this coast. Dutch and British gun positions face the bay from the ridge.
Kandyan-era temple whose 19th-century wall paintings mix Jataka tales with portraits of Queen Victoria and British colonial officials — an unusual record of who was paying for temple art. Image house and moonstone date to 1805.
The fort's only Buddhist temple, raised in 1889 on the shell of a Portuguese Catholic church the Dutch had turned into a milk store. Its stupa and gilded seated Buddha stand yards from Dutch graves — three faiths on one small plot.
Gem merchant Norbert Karunaratne's 17th-century Dutch house, packed with some 4,000 salvaged objects: VOC coins, lacquer boxes, spectacles, typewriters, and lace still stitched by hand in the courtyard. Open 09:00–18:00.
Raised in 1883 by public subscription to honour Dr Peter Daniel Anthonisz, the Burgher physician who worked through the town's smallpox years. Its four faces sit on Moon Bastion, above the second gate the British cut in 1873.
Set in a 1671 Dutch warehouse, the collection comes up from wrecks in Galle harbour: Chinese celadon, Arab storage jars, cannon, and timbers from the Avondster, a VOC ship that sank at anchor in 1659. Closed Mondays, 09:00–17:00.
The Dutch drilled troops on this esplanade and the British raced horses here from 1876, long before it became a Test ground in 1998. The 2004 tsunami flattened the pitch and stands; rebuilding took two years.
A mosque has stood on this corner for roughly three centuries; the white facade built around 1904 borrows a cathedral's twin towers. The lanes around it house descendants of the Arab traders who worked Galle before the Portuguese.
Anglican church consecrated in 1871 on the plot of the old Dutch courthouse, where sentences were passed and carried out. Cruciform Gothic Revival in local coral stone, with stained glass shipped from England and a working pipe organ.
Captain Francis Bailey of the P&O line built this Italianate villa in 1858 on a spit above Galle harbour, back when mail steamers still called here. Teak staircases, salvaged ship fittings and a terrace over the anchorage survive.
Built in 1684 as quarters for Dutch officers, it opened in 1865 as the New Oriental, the island's oldest hotel, where P&O passengers slept between steamers. Original ledgers, teak floors and planter's chairs are still in use.