Sandy Shores and Gorgeous Sunsets to Historic Sites

After a long and tiring few months of work and studies, we decided to finally take some time off for ourselves and travel around the South coast of Sri Lanka.

Our journey started from Colombo on the 18^th of October, my friends and I made our way to Galle. It was quite an easy and short drive as it only took us 2 hours to go to Galle Fort on the highway.

There is so much to do while you walk down the cobble-stoned alleys of Galle Fort! I would recommend that you take a whole day to explore this beautiful destination.

Galle Fort is the perfect place for the history lover, for the shopaholic and mostly for the foodie. Every nook and corner had a new and exciting place to be explored and the some of the best food we have ever had.

Galle Fort has been ranked as one of the best places for those Instagram-worthy pictures! It definitely falls under the list of must visit places in Sri Lanka as it is a tourist friendly destination.

First, we went to the National Maritime Museum at Galle Fort which showcases a collection of maps, boats and artillery that are centuries old. Then we made our way to Groote Kerk aka The Dutch Reformed Church, filled small and beautiful details that added onto the overall architecture of the church that was full of history.

It was quite a memorable experience as we embraced the ambiance of Galle and it's unique stories. The people in Galle were very friendly and helpful with giving us directions and recommending more places to visit at Galle Fort.

Afterwards, we decided to explore more of the boutique shops that were filled with gorgeous sundresses and colorful shirts. The best part about our day at Galle Fort was when we stopped by AQUA Forte for lunch. The dishes were bursting with flavor and were perfectly paired with fine Italian wine.

I had the 'Polpo alla barese' which was Octopus sous-vide with smoked potato puree, parsley powder and dry black olives. When we checked on TripAdvisor for restaurants in Galle, AQUA Forte appeared as the first suggestion. There were many lovely reviews left on the site about this particular dish which tempted me to try it out myself. The dish was delicious and it truly lived up to the hype.

After our delicious lunch we went to the beach to enjoy the beautiful scenery and sandy shores while we watched the gorgeous sunset. We ended our day near the historic Lighthouse at Galle Fort while the sky sparked with different shades of yellows and oranges.

The next length of the journey was the main reason why we decided to go on this trip; my friends and I wanted to learn how to surf after years and years of discussing it. We always kept putting it off because of work or because of studies but we finally got around to doing it!

Kabalana Beach in Ahangama is known to be one of the best surf spots in the South of Sri Lanka; which made it the perfect destination for us to finally learn how to surf. We decided to stay at Solas Surf, a surf and yoga retreat which was for beginners and intermediates. This helped us to get to know more surfers in Sri Lanka and get useful tips and tricks from them as well.

We spent a week at the retreat where we not only learned how to surf but also decided to give yoga a try. This was quite a soul-searching experience and I would definitely recommend that everyone try this out at least once in their life!

The exhilaration from catching a wave even if it was just for a matter of 5 seconds was an out of this world experience! We definitely learned a lot within this trip. However, there is so much more that we need to learn and we look forward to improving on our surf skills on our next trip to Arugambay, another place popular for surfing in Sri Lanka. The best part of it all is getting to know more people who surf and sharing experiences with each other.