The island's medieval capital: palaces, temples and four colossal Buddhas cut from a single wall of granite, spread across a park you can cycle around in a morning.
Polonnaruwa was the capital of Sri Lanka for about a century and a half, from the eleventh century, and it was run with a confidence you can still read in what is left. The ruins are unusually compact and unusually intact, laid out across parkland beside the Parakrama Samudra — a reservoir so large that the king who built it is said to have declared no drop of rain should reach the sea unused.
The set piece is Gal Vihara: four Buddha images carved out of one continuous granite face, including a seven-metre standing figure and a reclining Buddha fourteen metres long. The stone was chosen for its grain, and the sculptors worked with the banding rather than against it. Photographs consistently fail to convey the scale.
Around it are the quadrangle of religious buildings, the audience hall with its carved elephant plinth, the ruined royal palace, and a great deal of shade — the site is far greener than Anuradhapura and much easier going as a result.
Bicycles can be hired at the entrance and are by some distance the best way to see it. The distances between clusters are just far enough to be tiring on foot in the heat, and just short enough that a vehicle feels absurd.
