A guide to the Royal Palace of King Vijayabahu I at Anuradhapura: built after defeating the Cholas, yet already obsolete, visiting tips and map.

A guide to Anuradhapura's ancient irrigation tanks: Basawakkulama, Tissa Wewa and Nuwara Wewa, engineering that predates the capital's rise, visiting tips and map.

A guide to the Twin Ponds and Samadhi Buddha statue at Anuradhapura: ancient monastic bathing pools and a serene 4th-century meditation statue, visiting tips and...

A guide to Ratna Prasada at Anuradhapura: Abhayagiri's grand chapter house, its finest surviving guardstone, and a king's deadly betrayal of sanctuary, visiting tips and...

A guide to Mahasen's Palace and Eth Pokuna at Anuradhapura: home to the country's best-preserved moonstone and its largest ancient pond, visiting tips and map.

A guide to Abhayagiri Monastery at Anuradhapura: founded after a mocking insult from a rival priest, home to 5,000 monks, its stupa and museum, visiting...

A guide to Mihintale, the birthplace of Sri Lankan Buddhism: the deer hunt that changed history, its many monuments, visiting tips and map.

A guide to the Hospital Ruins at Mihintale: an ancient monastic medical facility with a surviving stone medicine bath, visiting tips and map.

A guide to the great stairway at Mihintale: 1,840 ancient granite steps ascending the sacred mountain, visiting tips and map.

A guide to Kantaka Chetiya at Mihintale: one of Sri Lanka's earliest religious monuments, its four ornate carved facades, visiting tips and map.