COLONIAL FORTS SRI LANKA

I'm sure most of us living in Sri Lanka have visited locations on the island that include a Fort.

- BY PAUL TOPPING

The most likely example is Galle Fort, our biggest Fort and a UNESCO location dating back to the sixteen hundreds. It’s my favourite Fort on the island, just walk the ramparts at sunset, mind blowing. I had the opportunity at the last Galle Lit. Festival to visit the normally no go area behind the police station, likely the oldest area of the Fort. Years back Jezzabel and I, in love with Galle, tried to buy a property facing the Galle ramparts, but we were guzumpt by the local 'property mafia'. There are said to have been thirty six Colonial Forts on the island, but this excludes some in ruins, some knocked down or lost and some built on pre Colonial sites.