Hotels in Colombo

Colombo is Sri Lanka's commercial capital and the arrival point for almost every visitor to the island. It is a working port city rather than a resort, layered with Portuguese, Dutch and British architecture and now a rising skyline of towers along the reclaimed Port City waterfront.

The Fort district holds the colonial banks and the restored Dutch Hospital, now a courtyard of restaurants. Pettah beyond it is a dense grid of market streets and the red-and-white striped Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque. Galle Face Green fills every evening with kite-flyers and food carts, and Gangaramaya Temple sits beside Beira Lake in the centre.

Many travellers give Colombo a day at either end of a trip, which is about right. Trains south along the coast to Galle run beside the beach, and the hill-country line to Kandy and Ella starts from Colombo Fort station.