Polonnaruwa

Polonnaruwa was Sri Lanka’s capital for about two centuries after Anuradhapura fell, and it is the better site to visit of the two. It is younger, it is far more compact, and much more of it is standing. If you only have time for one ancient city, this is usually the one to choose.

It peaked under Parakramabahu I in the twelfth century, who built the palace, the irrigation tank that still bears his name and most of what you will walk through. The whole site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Gal Vihara

Gal Vihara is the reason to come. Four colossal Buddha figures cut from a single granite face: a seated Buddha in meditation, a smaller seated figure in a rock cavity, a standing figure with its arms crossed, and a reclining Buddha fourteen metres long. The stone was chosen for its horizontal banding, and the carvers worked with it so the grain runs through the figures. It is the finest sculpture in the country and it is not close.

Go early or late. There is a canopy over the figures but the approach is open ground.

The rest of the site

The Quadrangle is a raised terrace holding a dozen structures in a small space — the Vatadage, a circular relic house with four Buddhas facing out, is the set piece. The Royal Palace was seven storeys when it was built and the surviving walls are still three metres thick. Rankot Vihara is the largest stupa on the site. Lankatilaka, a brick shrine with an enormous headless standing Buddha inside, is the most atmospheric.

The Sea of Parakrama, the tank on the western edge, is a twelfth-century reservoir that still irrigates farmland. It is the clearest illustration on the island of why these kings were remembered as builders of tanks rather than temples.

Cycling it

The monuments are spread over a few kilometres of flat, shaded road, which makes a bicycle the obvious choice — hire is cheap and available at the entrance and most guesthouses. A tuk-tuk with a driver works too and costs little more. Walking the whole thing is possible but tiring in the heat.

Allow half a day. A full day if you want to sit at Gal Vihara for a while, which is a reasonable thing to want.

When to go and what it costs

Entry is USD 25 per adult from the museum ticket office, which is where you should start — the scale models there make sense of the layout before you set off. May to September is the driest window; October to January brings the north-east monsoon.

Polonnaruwa is an hour east of Sigiriya, which is how most people arrange it: the rock at dawn, the ruins in the afternoon, or one on each of two days.