Another early start but another beautiful day to enjoy. To day we visited the sites of two very different Royal palaces.
Probably our first stop is the more famous; Sigiriya or 'Lion Rock' . This is a spectacular pillar of rock, 200 metres or 660 feet high,is visible from several miles around.
Our visit started with a tour of the beautiful landscaped gardens and water gardens, lots of lovely water lilies here!
Next the museum where we could find out all about this very unusual area, it's history and art works. This area was the capital for King Kasypapa after he seized the throne by killing his father and frightening away his half-brother. He was obviously was expecting some retaliation building his Palace and gardens in such an out of the way place. Photos and our guide told us that the route to the top was quite difficult and he was obviously not too keen on going to the top, up many steep steps with steep drops protected only by fences: the details from the museum were sufficient. We were fortunately able to see the images of the aspara women and the golden wall in the museum, especially as photographs are not allowed at the rock! They are stunningly beautiful.
After lunch in one of the interesting local restaurants recommended chosen by Abey it was back to the culture!
This afternoons Palace was Polonnaruwa capital city for King Visayabahu in 1070 . The area became a thriving commercial and religious centre for the next three centuries, it was further developed by King Parakramabahu who created the beautiful parks, huge buildings and an enormous reservoir providing an important source of water for the people as well as providing extra defence. Today this ia very popular with the local elephants!
What we saw really was an archaeological park with lots of preserved building , many of which had intricate carvings and decorations. Would like to have known a little more about the place but our guides knowledge or language skills was limited.
Our last visit of the day was to Gal Viharaya to see the shrine and the four amazing ststues of Buddha carved into the rock. This was a very popular place with many tourists and worshippers.
It was an interesting drive back to the hotel in the twilight, it gets dark here quite quickly and quite early. Sigiriya looked stunning in the changing light but even more surprising was the sight of a family of elephants walking along the side of the road!
Another interesting day.