Gourmet in Style

You will be met at Bandaranayke International Airport and driven to Sigiriya. The rest of the day at leisure. Dinner and overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, depart for Dambulla. Here you will visit the local market to buy fresh poultry and vegetables, including American oyster, butani and abalone mushrooms. With these, you will be able prepare a curry for the Buffet With Eastern and Western Dishes. Next on the shopping list are Chinese cabbage, butter beans, carrots, leaks, tinned bamboo shoots, baby corn and shitake or button mushrooms to prepare a Chinese Vegetable Chop Suey. With these ingredients, the chef will also show you how to make a mushroom curry, sweet-and-sour pork curry, chicken-and-black-bean curry with cashew nuts, and chilli paste with kunissa. Dessert includes a semolina and jaggery pudding and you can also pick your own vegetables at the hotel farm before enjoying a typical Sri Lankan lunch. Afternoon climb the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. Sigiriya today is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. It is one of the best preserved examples of ancient urban planning. It is the most visited historic site in Sri Lanka. The name refers to a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock nearly 200 metres (660 ft) high. According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the Culavamsa, this site was selected by King Kasyapa (477 – 495 CE) for his new capital. He built his palace on the top of this rock and decorated its sides with colorful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. Dinner & overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, depart for Dambulla Cave Temples. It is the largest and best-preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka. The rock towers 160 m over the surrounding plains. There are more than 80 documented caves in the surrounding area. Major attractions are spread over five caves, which contain statues and paintings. These paintings and statues are related to Gautama Buddha and his life. There are a total of 153 Buddha statues, three statues of Sri Lankan kings and four statues of gods and goddesses. En-route you will visit a spice garden to see the trees, plants and creepers that produce spices in Sri Lanka, and hear a talk on how they are used to flavour and enhance our curries. You will also be able to buy stocks of spices for use in your own dishes. To Kandy for your overnight stay. Accommodation is in a typical old Walawwa house that was built 175 years ago, and which has now been restored to its former splendor. Recognized as a national heritage home by the government, it is traditionally furnished, although bathrooms are elegantly fitted with all modern amenities. Its specialty is home-cooked traditional meals, and the owner will join you at dinner to explain how our curries and desserts are made. You will also have the opportunity to visit a green-tea factory that belongs to the same family, plus a leisurely walk around the tea plantation and along the banks of the adjoining river.

After breakfast, depart for Nuwara Eliya via Kandy. In Kandy you will visit the Hantana Estate and the Tea Museum of Sri Lanka (with its original hand-operated machinery that was used at Loolkondura Estate) and the Tea Research Station. After lunch, visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya. Then to Nuwara Eliya via Galaha and the Loolkondura Estate, where Sri Lanka’s first tea plantation was established by James Taylor in 1867. The first small shipments of tea were exported in 1872, which today have grown to more than 280 million kilograms, making Sri Lanka the largest exporter of tea in the world. Dinner and overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, visit Pedro Tea Estate, where you will be given a traditional basket and encouraged to try your hand with the estate’s resident tea-plucking ladies. To Colombo, to enjoy a western dinner at Gallery Café, a beautiful quiet haven with a renowned menu and a doorman dressed in a black-and-white-striped batik sarong to greet you as you walk past showcases containing art works of the current exhibition. The menu features fusion cuisine, including lemongrass and ginger chicken with spinach and potato mash, Mediterranean prawns with saffron risotto, black-pork curry with rice and accompaniments, and grilled seer with coconut risotto. Delicious! And the desserts are also definitely not to be missed—many mouth-watering treats, most of which include chocolate in one form or another. Overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, a tour of Colombo, after which you head 40km north to Negombo, visiting en-route a fully computerized state-of-the-art tea factory to see how tea is graded, packed and packaged. Overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, depart for the Lellama, where the fish caught by hundreds of boats are brought ashore and sold by auction. Here you can buy whatever takes your fancy, which will be prepared for you at the hotel. We suggest karalla, a small flat silver fish for making a delicious soup, prawns for a prawn cocktail, Giant tiger prawns, and Negombo Lagoon crabs, reckoned to be the best in Asia and exported live to Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany and many other countries. Of course, the hotel chef will demonstrate how to make the soup and the prawn cocktail with avocado. Baked crab or sizzling giant prawns . In the evening, experience a sea trip in an outrigger sailing catamaran used for herring fishing. If the sea is too rough, there is always a boat ride in the Dutch Canal or lagoon. Another option is to visit the Ayurveda Pavilion near the hotel for a herbal body massage for muscle relaxation and stress relief . Overnight stay at the hotel.

After breakfast, depart for the airport (approx 30 mins) for your flight home.