12 Days Culture tour itinerary for sri-lanka: Discover The Enchanting Corners Of Sri Lanka

Arrive at any time and enjoy your day. Please meet in the hotel lobby at 6:15 PM for the welcome meeting.You will be met at the airport and transferred to the hotel to start your adventure.

The adventure begins tonight. Feel free to explore before your welcome meeting, but make sure you’re back in time to meet the group. After the introduction, you will review the details of your tour. Please note that normal check-in times apply at our start hotels, but you can usually store your luggage for the day if you arrive early.

Discover Colombo on a city tour including the Fort and Pettah areas. Travel through scenic mountains to the tea-producing town of Nuwara Eliya, stopping in Kitulgala en route. Optional for a rafting excursion on the Kelani River.Colombo is a cozy mixture of the past and present, The Portuguese, Dutch and British have all left in their wake churches and monuments, names and religions, costumes and food and smatterings of their languages which have been absorbed into the speech of the Sri Lankan.

Visit Galle Face Green, Old Parliament, BMICH conference Hall, Independence square, Gangarama Temple and bare Lake and Hindu Kovil, Bazaars & markets.

Shop at Majestic city shopping complex, the house of fashion and the ODEL unlimited Dress Boutique. Also, visit the ceramic cooperation showroom Noritake shopping & Crest cat. 

Enjoy a tour of the city, including the Fort area, the historic Pettah district, and the cinnamon gardens. 

You can embark on an exciting whitewater rafting excursion on the Kelani River.

Enjoy a picnic breakfast and hike in Horton Plains National Park. Head back to Nuwara Eliya and indulge in high tea at the historic Grand Hotel. This evening, embark on a tuk-tuk ride and visit the town center and market.

The trek this is strenuous. If you are not interested in hiking, feel free to stay at the hotel and relax this morning.We will trek inHorton Plains Trek.The Horton Plains National Park has situated some 200 km away from Colombo, amidst hills in Nuwaya.

Step back in time and enjoy high tea at the historic Grand Hotel. Enjoy a lovely setting with Elizabethan-era architecture and beautiful gardens. The building was the former mansion of Sir Edward Barnes who was the Governor of Sri Lanka during 1830-1850.

Enjoy an evening tuk-tuk ride through the center of town. Get out and explore the market and surrounds.

Travel to Kandy, stopping at a Ceylon tea plantation en route to learn about the production process. Enjoy a tour around the city and lake, with a guided visit to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic.

Settle in and scan the scenery from the convenience of a private vehicle.

Be welcomed into the homes of local plantation families who will talk about the hardships of the industry. The town of Nuwara Eliya produces the finest Orange Pekoe Ceylon tea and is inhabited mainly by tea planters and plantation workers. Pay a visit to one of the factories to learn all about tea production.

Walk through the city and around Kandy Lake to get a better feel for the place.

Enjoy a tour of the Temple of the Tooth, which houses an important relic – a tooth of Lord Buddha kept in a well-preserved golden casket. Learn about the importance of this site from local guides.

Set out for a hiking excursion in the Knuckles mountain range, following trails through the lush forest past villages and tea plantations. Later, take in a lecture and demonstration on Ayurveda by an expert local practitioner.

Enjoy another night at the lodge.If you are not interested in hiking, feel free to stay at the hotel and relax this morning.

Embark on a trek in the Knuckles mountain range named for five peaks which resemble the knuckles of a clenched fist. Hike through the woods on one of the exciting nature trails and you may come across tea plantations, farmers, waterfalls, and small villages. Enjoy the pristine beauty of the area, free of roads for motorized vehicles.

Enjoy a session on Ayurveda by a local practitioner. The talk includes history and a demonstration of traditional herbs used in the practice, as well as a discussion of the differences in using a holistic approach vs. modern medicine. We also are shown how herbs and spices can cure simple ailments, from headaches to fever and how these ancient methodologies of preparing medicine were pioneered.

Pay a morning visit to a spice garden in Matale before arriving at the archaeological site of Nalanda Gedige – home to a unique fusion of Hindu and Buddhist architecture and imagery.

Continue on to the impressive Dambulla Cave Temple and admire ancient Buddhist murals and statues.

Visit a spice garden and marvel at the various spices used as natural medicines and as condiments in food.

Discover combined Buddhist and Hindu architecture on this visit to Nalanda Gedige, a small and less-visited ancient site. Some of the designs are clearly Hindu, yet no Hindu gods are depicted. Also see some erotic, but eroded, Tantric Buddhist carvings, reminiscent of the famous Khajuraho Temple in India.

Visit the ancient Dambulla cave temples at one of the most well-preserved temple and cave sites in Sri Lanka. See Buddhist mural paintings that line the walls of the seventh-century caves as well as a collection of hundreds of statues of Buddha in different poses.

Settle in and scan the scenery from the convenience of a private vehicle.

Purchase local ingredients and head to a small farmhouse for lunch. Get to know the family and help prepare the meal, while getting an inside look at traditional Sri Lankan cuisine.

After lunch, head to Sigiriya (Lion) rock fortress and climb the steps to the top of this captivating site to discover UNESCO-listed ruins and take in stellar views.

Be mesmerized by this rock fortress, which captivates every visitor with its well-laid out gardens, caves, monasteries, and palaces adorned with beautiful wall motifs. Start at the water gardens and climb more than 1,200 steps to reach the top. Pass caves with frescoes and boulders to find the ruins of a palace on the flat surface of the old volcanic magma rock. The rock rests 370m (1,213 ft) above sea level with a sheer drop on all sides.

Settle in and scan the scenery from the convenience of a private vehicle.

Travel north to Wilpattu National Park, known for its leopard population. Explore the park by jeep and meet with a knowledgeable forest ranger to learn about conservation efforts and the issues of human encroachment on wildlife reserves. Continue to Anuradhapura for the night.Settle in and scan the scenery from the convenience of a private vehicle.

Explore Wilpattu, one of the largest and oldest National Parks in Sri Lanka, renowned for its leopard population. Explore the park by jeep with a forest ranger to observe the local flora and fauna, but be on the lookout for the parks most famed resident, the leopard. After our safari, meet with a park representative, knowledgeable in wildlife conservation of the area and the conflicts of human encroachment on wildlife reserves.

Explore the sacred city of Anuradhapura, a UNESCO World Heritage site and discover ancient Buddhist monasteries.

Later, travel south to coastal Bentota.

Tour the ruins and monasteries of Sri Lanka’s first capital. A symbol of Sinhalese power, this is the nation’s most extensive and important ancient city.

Bentota – Bentota is a famous beach resort at a distance of 62 km to the south of Colombo. Located at the junction of Bentota River and the sea the place offers plenty of water sports opportunities such as windsurfing, water-skiing and catamaran rides. The best time to visit Bentota is between October and April when the sea is safest for swimming

Settle in at the hotel and enjoy free time to relax on the beach.

Enjoy a relaxing day at the beach.

Opt to explore or relax on the coast.

Sinharaja is Sri Lanka’s last existing tropical rainforest. More than 60% of the trees are endemic and many of them are considered rare. There is much endemic wildlife, especially birds, but the forest is also home to over 50% of Sri Lanka’s endemic species of mammals and butterflies, as well as many kinds of insects, reptiles and rare amphibians.Sinharaja Rain Fores is the only patch of virgin rainforest left in Sri Lanka. 

You would be visiting the village of Kudawa.

The Maduganga river is a shallow water body in south-west Sri Lanka, which enters the sea at Balapitiya, the Buddhist Kothduwa temple is situated on an isolated island in the lake together with the smaller Randomber Lake, to which it is connected by two narrow channels, it form the Madu Ganga wetland. It has high ecological, biological and aesthetic significance being home to 303 species of plants belongs to 95 families and to 248 species of vertebrate animals. It might be one of the last remaining tracts of pristine mangrove forests in Sri Lanka.There are six suites at the Lunuganga Estate. The Suites are preserved in, as close to the way they existed in the lifetime of the architect and full of an eclectic mixture of original antique, sometimes modern furniture and contemporary and traditional artworks.

Enjoy a relaxing day at the beach.

Visit the Elephant Transit home. There are more than 30 baby elephants feeding by milk bottle twice in every day, The Udawalawe Elephant Transfer Home is a facility within Udawalawe National Park in Sri Lanka that was established in 1995 by the Sri Lanka Department of Wildlife Conservation. Its primary objective is to rehabilitate orphaned elephant calves for ultimate release back into the wild

Then visit Hudurangoda Tea estate.The Estate is 200 Acres in extent and comprises 75 acres of tea. The balance plantation is of rubber, cinnamon, and coconut. There is a well-equipped tea factory on the property. Most machines were made in the United Kingdom and are over 140 years old.

We will do whale watching.

Take the boat from the fishery harbor out to sea. Blue Whales in concentrations not seen elsewhere in the world would be the highlight. A concentration of blue whales of this nature is something which whale watchers can only dream abou

After seeing the blue whales, the naturalist will take you further out to sea look for sperm whales. Even sperm whales sometimes come within a few kilometers of shore

Opt to explore or relax on the coast.

Depart at any time

An easy transfer to Colombo or the International airport.