Target Travels blog

Kandy

Despite now being the island’s second-largest city, Kandy retains a surprisingly small-town experience, its modest grid of low-rise streets are lined with characteristic colonial-era buildings and preserve a certain old-fashioned, countrified charm which even the often dense throngs of traffic and pedestrians can’t entirely obscure.

At the west end of the centre Kandy Lake provides the city’s scenic centerpiece. This fine expanse of water is bounded with elegant white balustrades, characteristic of Kandyan architecture and backed by the buildings of the Temple of the Tooth and the Royal Palace complex – particularly striking when seen from the south, with the neat white buildings framed against the rich green backdrop of the Udawatakelle Sanctu­ary behind and charmingly reflected in the waters of the lake in front.

Kandy is simply romantic. Words cannot describe why Kandy has today become the most visited city by all tourists to Sri Lanka.

The historic bastion of the island’s Sinhalese culture, the

city of Kandy remains Sri Lanka’s most vibrant centre
of traditional arts, crafts and religious pageantry

Recounting back the steep history of Sri Lanka, the Kingdom of Kandy retains an almost legendary air.  Established deep in the impenetrable hills at the heart of the island (central region of the island), the kingdom resisted repeated attacks by the Portuguese and the Dutch, cling­ing stubbornly to its independence throughout the dark centuries during which other parts of the island fell, to the invading Europeans one after another.  Pro­tected by its geographical position and dense jungle region around them, the Kandyan King­dom remained a point of stable reference in the island’s turbulent colonial history and preserved ancient religious and cultural traditions which were sub­dued elsewhere by Christian missionaries and corrosive western influences, until it too finally succumbed to the British in 1815.

This long history of political independence still informs many aspects of life in Kandy. The city remains a bastion of Sinhalese culture and religion. It is home to the island’s most important Buddhist temple, its most revered relic and its most magnificent festival, and is renowned for its uniquely dynamic tradition of dancing and drumming. The Kandyan region is the established arts and crafts capital of the island and is filled with myriad temples which exhibit a unique architectural style and are covered in vibrant murals.