Galle or Kandy?

Galle is a beach destination in its own right. Unawatuna's calm curve of sand, Jungle Beach below the Rumassala headland and the snorkelling pools at Dalawella and Thalpe are all a short tuk-tuk ride from the fort, and Mirissa and Weligama are within the hour. The catch is the season: from roughly May to September the southwest monsoon brings surf that makes many beaches unsafe.

Kandy has no beach at all. It sits in the hills about three hours from the coast, the lake is ornamental and the rivers are not safe for bathing. Swimming means a hotel pool, ideally one looking over the forested hills.

Both towns eat the same Sri Lankan staples: rice and curry, hoppers at breakfast, kottu off the griddle and short eats from bakery counters. The difference is range, and Galle has more. Fishermen sell the morning catch on the seafront, fish curries come sharp with goraka, and inside the fort there are courtyard cafés and heritage villas serving good coffee, seafood and more ambitious dinners.

Kandy is plainer. The best meals are in local eating houses near the clock tower and the market, few restaurants aim high, and many visitors end up eating at their hotel. Its own pleasure is tea, tasted at the estates in the surrounding hills.

Both are UNESCO-listed, but the experience differs. Galle's appeal is a whole colonial townscape: the ramparts, the Dutch Reformed Church with its floor of gravestones, the Maritime Museum in the old warehouses and the white lighthouse. It is best taken in on foot, ending with a sunset walk along the bastions.

Kandy centres on one living shrine, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Drummers and pilgrims in white make a visit feel like an occasion as much as a sight, and the royal buildings, the lake and the British Garrison Cemetery lie around it. Each town takes a day or two to see, not a week.

Neither is a place for a night out, but Galle has a little more going on. There are long dinners and drinks on rooftops and verandas in the fort, and a strip of beach bars at Unawatuna with the odd party night in high season. Kandy is a sacred city and empties after dinner, which leaves a hotel terrace over the hills or one of a few old-fashioned bars in the centre.

The outdoors splits into sea and hills. Galle's nature is coastal: reefs for snorkelling and diving, surf breaks at Weligama and Hikkaduwa, blue whales off Mirissa in the dry season, and mangrove boat trips on Koggala Lake. The Kanneliya rainforest is about an hour inland.

Kandy is the better base for walking. Udawatta Kele forest starts directly above the temple, and the Peradeniya gardens spread along a bend of the Mahaweli River. The Hantana hills have tea-estate paths close to town, and the Knuckles Range offers serious hiking through cloud forest further out.

From Galle, outings mostly lead to more coast. Along the coast road you find Ambalangoda's mask workshops, the old Dutch town of Matara and the Dondra Head lighthouse, and inland there are cinnamon estates and the Mulkirigala cliff temple. Colombo, about an hour and a half away, is the main change of scene.

Kandy has the stronger list because it opens onto the Cultural Triangle. The painted cave temples of Dambulla are about two hours away, Sigiriya's rock fortress makes a long day, and Embekke, Lankatilaka and Gadaladeniya form a half-day temple circuit. The roads are winding, so every trip takes longer than the map suggests.

Galle is the easier of the two with children. The fort's quiet lanes and ramparts are fun to explore, Unawatuna's sheltered bay is good for paddling in the dry months, and turtle hatcheries and whale-watching from Mirissa make simple outings. Monsoon seas and the fast coast road need care.

Kandy's best outings are the lawns at Peradeniya with their monkeys and fruit bats, the elephant visits and the hill-country train. The congested centre and narrow pavements are hard going with small children, though, and the temple asks for quiet. A hotel with a pool and garden outside town makes a big difference.

Galle's fort is the easier place of the two to get about on foot. Its lanes are flat and quiet with little traffic, and most visitors spend their days there without needing transport at all. Outside the walls you take a tuk-tuk to the beaches and hire a driver for longer outings, because the narrow coast road leaves no room for walking between bays.

Kandy's centre is just as compact, but it sits in a narrow valley full of traffic and fumes, the pavements are broken and many hotels are up steep hills, so tuk-tuks do much of the work. Kandy has the more memorable railway, though, as the starting point of the famous line through tea country to Ella.

Neither is a shopping destination, and in both the gem dealers call for caution. Galle's browsing has more style, with design boutiques in the fort's colonial houses selling linen, homeware and handloom textiles, and stalls of beeralu lace. Kandy is about local produce and crafts: tea from the estates, spices, batik, lacquerware and brass, with fixed prices at the government craft shop.

Kandy is the cheaper base overall. Guesthouses, local meals and transport all cost little. The main extra costs are the much higher fees foreigners pay at the temple, the botanical gardens and the ancient sites, plus a driver for day trips.

Galle can be just as cheap if you stay at Unawatuna or outside the walls and eat locally. But the fort's restored villas, boutique hotels and restaurants aimed at visitors charge close to European resort prices, and the fort is where most visitors want to stay.

Galle has almost nothing to attend beyond hotel dance shows and the occasional acoustic set. The coast's mask-dance tradition lives further north at Ambalangoda.

Kandy is the home of Kandyan dance. Cultural halls by the lake put on drummers, fire walkers and dancers in silver headdresses every evening, and drumming also accompanies the daily offerings at the temple. In July or August the Esala Perahera brings elephants, dancers and torch bearers through the streets over several nights.

Galle is the more restful of the two. Residential retreats along the coast offer doctors' consultations and prescribed diets for a week or more, yoga studios cluster around Unawatuna and Thalpe, and many villa hotels have their own treatment rooms. The fort's shaded verandas also keep the days slow.

Ayurveda is the foundation in Kandy too, with treatment centres in town and hillside retreats offering herbal steam baths and yoga with views over forest and tea. The town itself is noisy, though, so for calm you stay up on the hills or walk by the lake early in the morning.