Colombo Fort and Pettah

Fort was the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British administrative and commercial quarter, and it keeps colonial banks, the old lighthouse clock tower, the Dutch Hospital rebuilt as a shopping and dining courtyard, and the President's House. Directly beside it is Pettah, a grid of narrow streets where each one sells a single kind of thing, and where the Red Mosque, a striped red and white building of 1909, and the seventeenth-century Wolvendaal Church both stand.

What to look for

• The Red Mosque - a striped red and white building of 1909 in the Pettah streets.
• The Dutch Hospital - a seventeenth-century building reused as a courtyard of shops and restaurants.
• The Pettah trade streets - each lane selling one commodity, from rope to electronics.
• Wolvendaal Church - a Dutch church of 1749 with tombstones in the floor.

When to go

December to March is the driest and most comfortable. Pettah is at its most intense on weekday mornings. Sunday is much quieter as many shops close.

Before you go

Pettah is genuinely overwhelming: crowded, hot and loud, with heavy traffic and pickpocketing. Parts of Fort are restricted around government buildings and photography is limited. Walking is the only sensible way and it is exhausting.

Nearby

Gangaramaya is southeast, and Galle Face is south.