These stunning gardens were once reserved exclusively for Kandyan royalty. Today, even commoners are allowed in to enjoy the most impressive and largest (60 hectares) botanic gardens in Sri Lanka.

Highlights include a fine collection of orchids, a stately avenue of royal palms, the extraordinary, aptly named cannonball fruit tree and 40m-high Burma bamboo. Another big hit is the giant Javan fig tree on the great lawn, with its colossal central trunk and umbrella-like canopy of branches. Peradeniya is 6km from central Kandy.

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You'll share the gardens with thousands of wing-flapping fruit bats, hundreds of monkeys and dozens of canoodling courting couples. The Royal Botanical Gardens are now home to 4,000 different species of plants and over 10,000 trees, showcasing all of Sri Lanka’s flora and many other tropical plants not native to the island.