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St Peter's Church
Converted from the Dutch governor's banquet hall, St Peter's was first used as a church in 1804 and has been one ever since.
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Temple Trees
Temple Trees is the prime minister's fortified official residence. Galle Rd - the 'backbone' of Colombo - is also home to the Indian and British high commissions and the US embassy.
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University of Colombo
The centrepiece of the district is the 50-acre University of Colombo (also called the University of Ceylon) campus, which originally opened as the Ceylon Medical School in 1870.
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Vajiraramaya Temple
The Vajiraramaya Temple has been a centre of Buddhist learning since 1901. From here monks have taken the Buddha's message to Western countries, and on Sundays the complex is thronged with thousands of children taking Buddhism school.
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Viharamahadevi Park
This is Colombo's biggest park, originally called Victoria Park but renamed in the 1950s after the mother of King Dutugemunu. It's notable for its superb flowering trees, which bloom in March, April and early May. The broad Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha cuts across the middle of the park, while Colombo's white-domed Old Town Hall (also called White House) overlooks the park from the northeast. Working elephants sometimes spend the night in the park, happily chomping on palm branches.
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Wolvendaal Church
The 1749 Wolvendaal Church is the most important Dutch building in Sri Lanka. When the church was founded, this now-crowded inner-city district was a wilderness beyond the city walls. The Europeans mistook the packs of roaming jackals for wolves, and the area became known as Wolf's Dale, or Wolvendaal in Dutch. The church is in the form of a Greek cross, with walls 1.5m thick, but the real treasure is its Dutch furniture.
