Hello everyone,
Today I thought I would tell you about something unique in the city where I live. I live in the city of Galle in the southern province of Sri Lanka. The city of Galle is also known as the capital of the southern province. I am not going to talk about the city today. About a unique place in the city. That is about the Dutch fort or Galle Fort which is an ornament to the city of Galle.
Describing the history of Galle Fort is a very difficult task. I will explain a little.
The Portuguese invasion of Sri Lanka took place in 1505 when the Portuguese Lorenzo de Almeida landed in Sri Lanka. He landed at Galle Harbour, which was a natural harbour. The history of Galle Fort begins from here. The construction of Galle Fort was completed in 1588 by the Portuguese. It was extensively modernized in the 17th century with the subsequent Dutch occupation. This is a wonderful creation gifted to the world by the Portuguese. This fort has a history of more than 400 years. It has also been designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Today this fort is the top tourist attraction in Galle. It has two entrances. You can see one of those gates in the photo below.
This is a close-up of the logo above the entrance.
From this photo, you can see the front gate of the fort.
After the British made Galle fort an important administrative hub, it became necessary to improve and develop it's facilities, including the access roads. Accordingly, the new entrance was constructed by them in 1873 to overcome the difficulty in entering the fort through the narrow old entrance. Originally, entry from the new entrance was through a wooden bridge over the moat which existed then. However, at present the moat and the bridge are no longer in existence. This new entrance which has been constructed as an arch made out of bricks is an excellent example of British construction technology of that period. When one examines the interior of the entrance arch, one could observe that there has been provision to fix two sliding door panels which could be opened by lifting upwards. However, such door panels have not been fixed.
I don't have enough hive power to post the whole post so stay tuned for the rest in the next blogs.
Please note that I have the right to the article and photos.
Thank you.
@hive.rana