Highlights of Sri Lanka

From the Cultural Triangle you’ll head to Kandy for the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, a shrine with a golden canopy and a curious collection of ancient graffiti. The botanical gardens outside town contain plants brought by British gardeners in the 19th century, but it’s the tea plantations around Nuwara Eliya that show more clearly how the island’s global identity was shaped. Later, the itinerary swings south to the broad beach at Beruwala, arriving via Yala National Park, whose jagged landscape shelters leopards, elephants and sloth bears. A turtle hatchery at Galle offers respite from travel, before the trip ends with two days by the sea.