Under its Moriyan kings, Sri Lanka soared to unequalled heights of artistic excellence. New ideas and philosophies had flourished. So why was it that – overall – their rule had been, in the last analysis, disastrous?

Kandy guards its remarkable story so well that it is all too easy to miss. Yet squirrelled away behind its traffic jams and shop hoardings, history is not dead; not even sleeping or dazed. It is instead ever on the lookout.

Unlike the classical world, Sri Lanka's ancient wonders are not merely buildings, including as they do a painting, a monastery, a book, technology, a shrine, and a tree. But why do they also include a lake?

Like the cavalry of old, they raced on to rescue a stricken kingdom from itself. But what did the Lambakanna dynasty really achieve – and why were they overthrown? ,

From the Red Road to the Galagedera Gap, the two dozen acres around The Flame Tree Estate and Hotel demonstrate feral gardening at its best. So what might you encounter as you meander through its plantations and tracks?

Given Sri Lanka’s remarkable facility for naturalising anything it takes a fancy to, counting its spices is a sure way to stir debates about everything from history to life expectancy, but all miss the pure magic of actually making one.

Packing a punch quite out of proportion to its size, Sri Lanka is distinctive and magnificent in the most Byzantine of ways. But what is it that makes it so special – and how did it all begin?

Sri Lanka’s first kings laid the indispensable foundations of an entire island-nation state, their achievements evident in almost every aspect of life today. But who were they? Where did they come from? And where did they go?

A hiding place for kings, a turning point for invaders: what is it about this lofty hilltop jungle village that makes the ordinary quite so beautiful? Let's start with a little bit of retail therapy, which will take you down one of the world’s busiest high streets. And if you wonder about the example chosen – which you may, at first glance, consider eccentric, situated as it is in small village in the middle of an island of barely 20 million people in one of the least

Rescuing the nation from civil war and chaos, how was it that the returning Lankbranaka dynasty would then preside over the kingdom’s utter devastation, the like of which the island had never before endured?

Sri Lanka was ruled by hundreds of kings and a handful of queens for over 2,000 years. But which of them were among its six most egregious baddies – and why?