Start at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and time it for one of the three daily pujas, when the doors of the relic chamber open. Walk the lake afterwards, then give the afternoon to the botanic gardens at Peradeniya. Day two belongs west of the city: the fourteenth-century temples at Gadaladeniya, Lankatilaka and Embekka, then a working tea factory on the way back.
Kandy was the last capital of the Sinhalese kings, held out against the Portuguese and the Dutch, and still keeps the Buddha's tooth relic in a temple beside its lake. It sits at about 500 metres, which makes it several degrees cooler than the coast.
The Buddha's tooth relic sits in a gold casket behind the inner shrine, and the doors open for three pujas a day, at 5.30am, 9.30am and 6.30pm. Come for one of those. Between them you are looking at a closed chamber and a queue, with the drums silent.
Sixty hectares inside a loop of the Mahaweli, with more than 4,000 plant species, an avenue of royal palms and a Javan fig whose canopy covers most of a lawn. Open 7.30am to 6pm daily, and the orchid house is the one indoor stop worth the detour.
Sri Wickrama Rajasinha had the lake dug in 1807, eight years before the kingdom ended, and the walk around it still frames the temple, the old royal quarter and the ridge behind. Fishing is banned, so pelicans, cormorants and water monitors have the water to themselves.
An hour of Kandyan drumming, ves dancers in their silver headdresses, and a fire-walking finale in the courtyard. The show starts at 5pm daily, tickets are sold at the door, and the hall fills well before it begins.
104 hectares of forest directly behind the temple, a royal pleasure garden long before it was a reserve. Paths climb past the old Royal Pond and the Senkanda cave through macaques, giant squirrels and a great deal of birdsong.
The drummers' hall here carries the finest wood carving in the country: swans, wrestlers, a double-headed eagle, and no two pillars alike. It was built under Vikramabahu III in the second half of the fourteenth century and the timber is the original.
A fourteenth-century image house planted on the Panhalgala rock, reached by steps cut into it, with the Hantana range across the valley. The scale is the surprise: brick walls several storeys tall on a hilltop most visitors drive straight past.
A white seated Buddha on the hill above town, floodlit after dark and visible from most of the city. The reason to climb is the platform at its feet, which lays out the lake, the temple and the ridge line in a single frame.
The 1925 Hantane factory, restored with its rollers and driers in place, runs the story from James Taylor's first planting to the auction floor. The top floor is a tea room looking out over the estate the building was built to serve.
Two floors of fruit, spice, dried fish and cut flowers behind the clock tower, busiest before nine in the morning. It is where the guesthouse kitchens buy, and the stalls upstairs sell cinnamon quills and pepper by weight.
Stone-built in 1344, with South Indian lines the wooden temples nearby do not have.
The oldest surviving building in the precinct, and the shrine where kings took their name.
A cave temple 6 km east, painted with Kandyan-era murals straight onto the rock.
One of the two chapter houses of the Siyam Nikaya, on the south shore of the lake.
The other chapter house, uphill from the centre, with a large reclining Buddha.
Cloud forest and rice terraces 30 km northeast. Permits are issued at the entrance.
The Mahaweli backed up behind a dam finished in 1985, with a road along the rim.
Where James Taylor planted the island's first tea in 1867. Rough road, real pilgrimage.
The estate paths behind the tea museum, best walked before the afternoon cloud.
The old royal palace quarters, now regalia, weapons and Kandyan household work.
Brass, lacquer and reed work sold where it is made, with an evening dance show.
British graves on the slope behind the temple, opened in 1817 and closed in 1873.
A state craft village east of town: wood, brass and weaving under one roof.
The centre: temple, museums, market, and most of the guesthouse traffic.
The state-run herd 40 km west, busiest when it walks down to the river.
The Tamil harvest festival. Rice boiled over in the open at sunrise, and a public holiday island-wide.
Parades and school displays. Government offices and many shops close for the day.
The biggest domestic travel week of the year. Buses fill, and much of Kandy shuts for several days.
Lanterns across the city, free food at roadside dansal, and the temple busy through the night.
Marks Buddhism's arrival on the island. Pilgrims head for Mihintale, and Kandy's temples stay open late.
Ten nights of caparisoned elephants, drummers and fire dancers. In 2026 it runs 18 to 28 August.
The Tamil festival of lights, marked in the temples and along the shop streets of the centre.
Remembers Sanghamitta bringing the Bo sapling to the island. A quiet, well-attended temple day.
Sri Lanka's main gateway, about 115 km northwest by road. Three to four hours by car depending on the expressway traffic.
Kandy station sits 120 km from Colombo Fort, about two and a half to three hours on the intercity. The Badulla line south of here is the scenic one.
The Goods Shed terminal opposite the station runs state and private services to Colombo, Nuwara Eliya, Dambulla and the east.
A plate of rice ringed by five or six curries, one of them fiery.
Chopped godamba roti, egg and vegetables, announced by the noise of the blades.
Bowl-shaped rice-flour pancakes, crisp at the rim, with an egg in the middle.
Steamed rice-noodle nests, eaten at breakfast with dhal and coconut sambol.
Grated coconut pounded with chilli, lime and Maldive fish. On every table.
Rice, curries and a frikkadel meatball baked and served in a banana leaf.
Buffalo curd in a clay pot under kithul palm treacle. The standard dessert.
A steamed coconut and jaggery custard, spiced with cardamom and clove.
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