Nuwara Eliya

Nuwara Eliya

The city of light. Six thousand feet above the sea, inside the clouds.

The British built a hill station here at 1,868 metres to escape the heat. What they left behind --- the racecourse, the mock-Tudor hotels, the rose gardens --- sits incongruously among some of the finest tea land on earth. The mist rolls through in the afternoon and does not always leave. The mornings are cold enough to see your breath.

Experiences at this stop

• Tea estate walk and factory tour

Walk the estate rows at dawn --- the light in the high country at 6am, the mist lifting from the valley below, the Tamil tea pluckers beginning their day. The tasting at the end is a genuine education.

• Gregory Lake --- morning walk and boat

The colonial-era lake surrounded by eucalyptus and pine, with morning walks and quiet boat rides.

• Lovers' Leap waterfall hike

A two-hour walk through tea country reaching a waterfall that drops into a valley of extraordinary depth.

• Victoria Park and bird watching

One of the most reliable sites in Sri Lanka for endemic highland birds --- the Kashmir flycatcher, the Indian blue robin, and the Sri Lanka white-eye.