One of my pet peeves about five star hotels is that they all look exactly the same as the next one. And that in itself sounds like a waste of money to me. So whenever we plan our travels, one thing we attempt through our journey is to discover hotels or home stays that offer a different experience in terms of accommodation and service. I would rather spend the amount I would have eventually spent on a Five star place, on a boutique hotel with a unique experience set.
This is something we attempted (and successfully achieved) in Sri Lanka tour as well. While I will be blogging the whole itinerary in detail later. Today I want to share with you my experience about the place we stayed in Galle.
Prince of Galle.
True to its name, the hotel had an element of history embedded in it. The hotel also earmarks the year 1718 as first birth of Jobsz ( owner family) after coming from Amsterdam, the place had its own emblem, a large wall filled with photographs, paintings documenting the years that have gone by and of course like every other great stay, a very gracious host.
Kirk is not your regular hotel owner, he is a very hands on person who will spends hours in the morning interacting with guests at breakfast, getting his staff to cook up a storm in kitchen (later about this) and most importantly makes you feel belonged in a place far away from home.
Galle was our last stop in a whirlwind trip across Sri Lanka and we had deliberately done so to allow ourselves a relaxing end before we headed back to home and chaos. The city itself is a beach town and as most Tripadvisor reviews would recommend – you have to stay within the fort because that is where the experience lies.
We too while searching hotels on Tripadvisor, placed our filters to discover a stay inside the fort and our search popped open Prince of Galle as an option. The property not only looked beautiful in pictures and in positive reviews but was also in fact extremely centrally located and within minutes of walk away from the beach and pedlar street.
It took us a day to zero in on the stay.
The room we stayed in was “King’s residence” and it had its own private floor with a beautiful seating space. The room itself was done extremely tastefully with some elements retained from the original building set – such as a vintage door with a mirror inside it.
They say a picture says a thousand words, I will embed a video tour of the room below here to make it a million sentences!
View this post on Instagram
Apart from the room, the hotel offers a five course breakfast which let me just say, is to die for. Most people who know me, know this, that I am not a foodie. Not only that, I am also a very frugal eater. So when Kirk first mentioned the five course breakfast I wasn’t very excited. But how wrong I was!
The breakfast itself deserves a separate post. I even sneaked some of the recipes of the individual dishes and have already tried one and another is on way tonight (Masterchef India – here I come).
The five course breakfast meal involves – this beautiful oats and fruits meal. A very Sri Lankan style french toast. A mouth wash to remove all the flavours you have experienced so far. Then a unique take on the very famous Sri Lankan hoppers – Hoppas (a mix of tapas & hoppers) – which let me tell you, two of them were not enough to satiate my taste (THAT GOOD). And then to end the breakfast with some bread toast and homemade jam.
While I was writing the last paragraph it dawned on me that if someone narrated this course of meal to me, I would imagine I cannot finish even half of it. But guess what, I finished them all! Yup. Yup. That good.
Side note: Though I will document the breakfast in detail – if you still need more info, check out this post.
Overall, Prince of Galle was an experience it itself. What with unique rooms, a beautiful setting and gracious host – the stay was very much part of our trip as the city tour. In fact if you are in Galle, we highly recommend you stay here. But just in case you don’t, then do try their world famous Ice tea – which let me tell you was quite something!
If you want any other information about this place, hit me up in comments or send me a message through contact us.
You can also look up Prince of Galle on Instagram & Facebook. Also their website.
Disclaimer: We were offered a complimentary stay at this hotel but in no way has that impacted my review of them.
Hi Richa ! Good to see you here. Will take time and read your blogs one by one.