Colombo

Colombo is Sri Lanka introducing itself gently before the island shows you everything else. Dutch and British-era buildings line streets that open onto the Indian Ocean, tuk-tuks navigate past century-old mosques, temples and churches standing within blocks of each other, and Galle Face Green fills every evening with kite-flyers and street food carts as the sun drops into the sea.

It's a city best explored slowly — the quiet lanes of Cinnamon Gardens, the colour and noise of Pettah Market, the calm of Gangaramaya Temple — before it hands you off to the rest of Sri Lanka: the beaches of the south coast, the hill country's tea estates, and the ancient cities further north. For most travellers, Colombo isn't the whole trip. It's the perfect, unhurried start to one.