Staying in Nuwara Eliya’s “Little England”
Summary
Nestled up in the middle of Sri Lanka’s Tea Country, Nuwara Eliya was one of the old colonial centres for the tea industry and, with the combo of old quaint buildings, race course, golf courses and, well bloody drizzly bleak weather, is affectionally known as “Little England”. As an Englishman I can confirm I felt right at home!
The wandering around the town is nice, as you get to places like the old post office, police station and hotels straight out of a Charles Dickens novel, but it is the surrounding Tea Estates that are the highlight
Top Tips:
1. The drive from Nuwara Eliya to Talawakelle / St Claire Tea Centre is the prettiest for views – its hard to go wrong with the surrounding countryside as it’s all gorgeous, but this is the pick of the bunch. Also, the drive from St Talawakelle to Tawalantenne is dramatic, but super windy and a bit nauseating. For a driver, I went with Yoga (+94 75 165 0205) who was great and charged around US$50 a day
2. Stay in one of the colonial hotels – it will give you the full “Little England” / Old Colonial feel. The Grand Hotel is best for this in the centre; Ferncliff Bungalow for something in the centre that is far quieter but still quintessentially English; and the Amaya Langdale / Oliphant Villa for luxury 20mins or so from the centre
3. Visit one of the Tea Factories – the Damro Labookellie Tea Factory is good for learning about the tea. The Heritance Tea Factory for more style
4. Have High Tea in the Heritance Tea Factory – beautifully restored old Tea Factory that is now a hotel providing luxurious afternoon tea from 3pm onwards
5. The parks are ok for an hour or so – Victoria Park is nice enough to walk through for 30mins, and so is the nearby Galway Land National Park, but have low expectations (highlights are the colonial buildings and tea estates)
6. Wrap up – it gets cold! The don’t call it Little England for nothing – expect drizzle and cold evenings in the winter!
highlights
#1 The drive through the picturesque tea estates from Nuwara Eliya to the St Claire Tea Centre
#2 Having High Tea in the Heritance Tea Factory, and learning about how they made the tea in this wonderfully well restored old tea factory
#3 Stopping to watch the pickers working their way through the 18kg / 40 pounds of tea they need to pick a day (tough going!)
#4 Stopping for tea in one of the roadside tea centres, in this case St Claire's
#5 Staying in one of the old English Manors like Ferncliff Bungalow with its pretty grounds
#6 Taking a 30min walk through either of Victoria Park or the nearby Galway Land National Park
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Pretty Village Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone