The east coast’s great natural harbour city is home to Nilaveli and Uppuveli beaches – wide, white-sand, clear-water shorelines that rank among the finest in Asia with a fraction of the visitor traffic of comparable western coast destinations. The Koneswaram Temple on Swami Rock, balanced on a cliff above the harbour with views across the bay and the open ocean, is one of the most dramatically positioned sacred sites in Sri Lanka, and the offshore whale-watching season from Trincomalee between May and September consistently produces remarkable blue whale and sperm whale encounters.
