Day 3 10 February 2026 Sri Lanka Colombo to Galle

A slow start today, we both slept pretty well last night, which was good.
I’m happy to report that all the vehicle horns are still working properly and often/constantly! 🙂
Today we drive down the west coast to Galle, about 130km away, a bit over a 2hour drive.
One thing i haven’t mentioned is that Sri Lanka is hosting games for the 2026 T20 World Cup, and so is a bit busier than usual in tourist number terms.
We met Hiru in the foyer at 10 :30 and were on our way soon after that. He took advantage of the drive south to fill us in on some more Sri Lankan history and cultural background.
Hiru spoke of the many proposed origins for the name of Galle, from indigenous origins, to Portuguese and English, all seemed plausible and possible.
The animal symbol of Galle is the Rooster. Galle relies on fishing, tourism and agriculture for its income. There are no land masses of significance between the bottom of Sri Lanka and Antarctica, so they make the most of the waters for fishing, but we haven’t seen any “modern” fishing fleets anywhere.
Sri Lanka has an rich source of gem stones, having about 30 different varieties, but no diamonds. It supplies around 10% of the worlds premium tea.
The roads out of Colombo and its suburbs were the same general chaos as it was in central Colombo, but once we got on the tollway south it was much easier driving.
On the drive we passed many rice fields, the golden crop, cinnamon plantations, and rubber plantations.
We stopped at about 12:10 for a mid trip break, back on the road we passed by Agar trees, they are native to the island and are used to make perfume sold in Arabian countries. People are starting to establish plantations for cash crops.
We passed more cinnamon plantations and even a tea factory, it looked like a drying building, a large shed with many louvres open on the sides to let air pass through
The land down south is very green, heavily “wooded” and hilly.
We got Into Galle around 12:30pm and went to the Dutch Hospital precinct for lunch. We both chose a prawn curry, I got a black curry and Deb got a coconut green curry. Both were delicious. While we sat eating lunch a Bread fruit tree was pointed out to us, the fruit that old time explorers and sailing ships relied onto combat scurvy at sea.
After lunch we drove to our hotel within the fort, The Merchant, on Peddler St.
We were checked in and relaxing in our room by 2:30pm
We met Hiru at about 3:45pm for a walking tour around the old fort (trying to miss the hottest part of the day.)
Galle fort sits on more than 52 hectares of land, it was originally built by the Portuguese and later expanded and extended by the Dutch and British. It has some of the most expensive land in Sri Lanka.
We walked north up Church St taking 8nthehistory of the area Until we reached the top of the hill and the old Dutch Reformed Church. Its the oldest of its kind in the area and house relics from its beginning in the 1500’s and has many old family tombstones, so in the forecourt had recent engravings on the family headstones. (In the long gone past, families would buy a headstone and pay for all future family members to be recorded on the stone, some stones had abrupt endings halfway down, while others looked like they needed an extra sheet!.
From there we walked along the eastern wall of the fort to the northern wall and a view over the outer areas of Galle. The first thing you see is the Galle International Cricket Ground, the scene of many great cricket tests.
We continued to walk along the north wall to the powder magazines in the NW Corner, with views over the Indian Oceans and the smoke haze / smog coming from India.
We then walked back to the Galle Fort Hotel and a Annack tasting. We tried 5 different Annacks, all produced to the high standards set in Sri Lanka. We tried a single distilled wooden barrel matured Annack, a double distilled wood aged Annack, a single distilled matured in stainless steel Annack and then we tried a couple of premium Annacks. The first aged for 4 years in 2 different wooden barrels and the other, made on a craft coconut farm where all the care for the coconut trees is like the equivalent of a hand crafted vineyard. The result was a spirit that was full bodied and rounded flavours. Whilst all the other Annacks’ we tried this stood out because of its makers appreciation of the dedication required to produce a fine drinking Annack.
From there we walked back along the streets to our Hotel and a quiet evening.