Peradeniya Botanical Gardens

15 minutes drive from the city centre is the Peradeniya Botanical Garden. It is the largest in Sri Lanka, covering 60 hectares.  The garden began as a pleasure garden for a Kandyan king and is surrounded on three sides by the river Mahaweli. The garden possesses over a hundred varieties of palm trees and the famous Javan fig tree which covers 1600 square metres.

 

Another attraction is the Orchid House which houses more than 300 varieties of exquisite orchids. A spice garden gives you a first hand introduction to the trees and plants used for traditional Ayurvedic medicine. Wandering through the gardens is an experience which should not be missed. Our favourite is the bat tree - a tree which you cannot walk past without noticing as it is the noisiest tree in the garden. What you believe to be flowers or fruit dangling from the branches are in fact bats and they seem only to rest in this particular type of tree.