Visit Sri Lanka: Galle Fort

Sri Lanka

The Finest Island in the World-That's the way Marco Polo, the famous explorer, described Sri Lanka on his travel accounts.Sri Lanka is loaded with romantic landscapes, governed by rising mountains, lavish woods, ocean like tanks and spouting waterfalls, that it was viewed as the lost heaven by numerous a globe trotters, who fell upon the country.

Sri Lanka was known by a variety of names. As indicated by the Mahavamsa, the Prince Vijaya named the area Tambapanni ,In Hindu mythology, such as the Mahabharata the island was referred to as Lanka.Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobana,The Persians and Arabs referred to it as Sarandib,As a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Galle Fort

Galle fort is traced to Ptolemy's world mp of 125-150 AD. Those days it was a busy port trading with Asian Countries, Arab Countries and Greece. This is the harbour in which the Portuguese, beneath the management of Lorenzo de Almeida, made their first landing in 1505.The fort was first constructed by the Portuguese in 1588 before being extensively fortified by the Dutch in the mid 1600s.In 1640, the Dutch entering the fray joining hands with King Rajasinhe II to capture the Galle Fort and with a force of some 2,500 men under Koster, captured the fort from the Portuguese in 1640.

The Dutch were also in charge for introducing a road system and canals. They designed a sewage system to carry all the waste inside Fort to the sea by gravity. There are two main gates in Galle Fort. The walls in front of the Fort were built by the Portuguese.

On 23-Feb-1796 British Forces in Sri Lanka, led by Captain Locklan Macwary, Captured Galle without any fighting. The Law Court complex built during the British period still remains without major changes.