National Museum of Galle, National museum in Galle Fort, Sri Lanka

The National Museum of Galle occupies the oldest surviving Dutch building in Galle Fort, a single-storey colonnaded structure built in 1656 as the garrison's commissariat store. Its three galleries hold Portuguese, Dutch and British period pieces: cottage-industry crafts such as turtle-shell jewellery, Beeralu lace and carved wooden masks, then Dutch furniture and weaponry, and the Sri Lanka China Friendship Gallery opened on 10 September 2013.

The Dutch built this single-storey colonnaded structure in 1656 as the commissariat store for the Galle fort garrison. It later became a billiards room for the adjoining New Oriental Hotel, now the Amangalla Hotel. The Department of National Museums renovated it and opened it as a museum on 31 March 1986.

The first gallery covers Galle's cottage industries: turtle-shell jewellery, Beeralu lace weaving and traditional wooden mask carving. The second holds Dutch-period furniture and weaponry. A third gallery, the Sri Lanka China Friendship Gallery, opened on 10 September 2013 and covers trade links with China.

The museum occupies the single-storey colonnaded Dutch building on Church Street, within the walled Galle Fort, and is reached on foot along the fort's lanes. The three galleries are compact, so the visit takes little time and fits easily into a walk between the fort ramparts and the nearby Amangalla Hotel, the former New Oriental Hotel.

The Sri Lanka China Friendship Gallery opened on 10 September 2013. Its displays cover the monk Faxian (337 – c. 422 CE) and Admiral Zheng He (1371 – 1433), whose 14th-century fleet reached the island. Look for the archaeological evidence of trade presented alongside these two biographies.