Peradeniya Royal Botanical Gardens

This royal palace is perhaps the most significant of all Sri Lanka’s historic sites, combining as its does an ancient seat of government with one of the world’s most sacred Buddhist relics. The relic, a tooth said to have been recovered from the body of the Buddha himself after his death, is housed in the Temple of the Tooth, a place of reverence for believers and non-believers alike. The last Kandian king to occupy the palace, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, was unseated by the British in 1815. The complex is now fully open to the tens of thousands of visitors who flock to the Hill Country every year.