Sri Lanka’s highest city carries a peculiarly enchanting colonial atmosphere – Tudor buildings, rose gardens, a Victorian racetrack, and the continuous visual drama of tea estates covering every hillside to the horizon in every direction. The surrounding highland landscape produces some of the world’s finest high-grown Orange Pekoe in a setting of such extraordinary beauty that it functions as its own attraction regardless of any tea interest. The Gregory Lake waterfront, the Hakgala Botanical Gardens, and the colonial-era Grand Hotel provide a distinctly civilised counterpoint to the wilderness experiences available in the highlands above.
