History
Galle Fort, the walled town the Dutch built on a headland
On a headland on Sri Lanka's south coast, the Dutch built a walled town of ramparts, churches and merchants' houses that still stands, still lived in. Galle Fort is a place to walk slowly, and to watch the sun go down from the walls.
By Walter Pellow2 November 20263 min read
Galle Fort sits on a small, rocky headland that pushes out into the Indian Ocean on Sri Lanka's south-west coast, and from a distance it looks like what it is: a fortress. Thick ramparts of stone and coral run all the way round it, broken by bastions with names, a gate or two and a white lighthouse. Inside, though, it is not a barracks but a small town: a grid of quiet streets lined with low colonial houses with deep verandas and red-tiled roofs, churches, a mosque, old warehouses, a few small shops and cafés, and families who have lived there for generations.
It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Old Town of Galle and its Fortifications, inscribed in 1988, but it has never stopped being a working town. That is its charm.
Portuguese, Dutch, British
Galle was a port long before the Europeans came: its natural harbour drew traders from Arabia, India and China. The Portuguese reached it in 1505, when a ship under Lourenço de Almeida was driven into the harbour by a storm, and later built a fort here.
The Dutch East India Company took Galle from the Portuguese in 1640, after a siege, and over the following decades they rebuilt and greatly extended the fortifications, enclosing the whole headland with the walls and bastions that stand today. Inside them they laid out the town, with its grid of streets, its Dutch Reformed church, its warehouses and its governor's house, and an underground system of drains. The British, who took over later, added buildings of their own, but left the town much as the Dutch had built it.
Inside, it is not a barracks but a small town.
The walls and the streets
The best way to see Galle Fort is to walk round the ramparts, a circuit that takes an hour or two at an easy pace, with stops. From the walls you look out over the sea on three sides, past the lighthouse and the rocky shore, and in on the roofs of the town. In the late afternoon the walls fill with people: families, couples, cricket games on the grass of the old esplanade, and everyone gathering to watch the sun go down over the Indian Ocean. Bring water and a hat for the rest of the day: the ramparts are exposed, and the midday sun on the old stone is fierce. The best hours are the early morning, when the town is waking up and the light is soft, and the last hour before sunset.
Inside, the streets are for wandering. Church Street, Leyn Baan Street and the lanes around them have old Dutch houses, many now restored as small hotels, galleries, shops and cafés, while others are still family homes. The Dutch Reformed church, its floor paved with old tombstones, the old warehouses and the maritime museum tell the story of the trade that built the town.
The wave
On 26 December 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami struck Sri Lanka's south coast, and Galle was badly hit: the town around the fort was devastated, and many people died. The fort itself, behind its old walls, held, and has since been carefully restored. It is a sobering thing to remember, standing on the ramparts above a calm sea.
How to go
Galle is on most journeys around Sri Lanka, usually towards the end, after the hill country and the national parks.
Explore's twelve-night Upgraded - Discover Sri Lanka goes from Negombo to Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa and Dambulla, Kandy and Peradeniya, Nuwara Eliya and Ella in the hill country, then Kataragama and Yala National Park before Galle and Beruwala. It departs from August to March.
Travelsphere's twelve-night Highlights of Sri Lanka covers Colombo, Minneriya, Sigiriya, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Yala, Beruwala and Galle.
G Adventures' eleven-night Sri Lanka: Spice Gardens & Seasides goes from Kandy to Ella, then to Galle and Galle Fort, and Hikkaduwa and its beach. It departs in November and December.
The south-west coast is at its best from about December to April, when the weather is dry and the sea calm. The south-west monsoon brings rain from about May. Stay inside the fort for at least a night if you can. After the day visitors have left, the streets are quiet, the walls are cool in the evening breeze, and you can hear the sea on three sides.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
