IF SRI LANKA HAD TO CHOOSE ONE HOTEL TO REPRESENT THE NATION

it would almost certainly be the Galle Face Hotel. For more years than anyone has lived, this hotel has stood at the end of Galle Face Green looking out to sea, a British colonial building of palatial dimensions and grand vistas.

As Cyril Gardiner, the legendary former chairman, said: "the GFH was opened long before the world had heard of Marx, before the Wright brothers flew the first plane, before Bell invented the telephone, even before Stanley found Livingstone". From the earliest days the hotel was the center for the social gatherings of the country's high society. It's reputation spread far and wide as THE stop-over hotel for trips out East. Among the rich and famous who have passed through the stone columns at the top of the entrance stairs are such diverse characters as Noel Coward, Duke Ellington, Lord Mountbatten, Sir Laurence Olivier and Prince Philip. Today, guests are greeted in the same royal manner by dignified men in immaculate white sarongs and epauletted jackets.

The rooms are large for their category - be they standard, deluxe or suite - with high ceilings, wooden floors and antique furniture. Regular refurbishments have kept them all in good order, particularly the magnificent 'royal suites' with their deep emerald carpets and ebony furniture. The better rooms look directly out to sea or over the Green.

Making good use of their ocean frontage (the only Colombo hotel to have such a location), the fine dining restaurant abuts the sea wall and is called 'Seaspray', (which is only relevant on windy off-season days!) Naturally, it specialises in seafood cuisine. The hotel's swimming pool also runs along the sea wall. But probably the hotel's location is most appreciated every day around 6pm, when many guests, locals and ex-pats gather around the garden and enjoy the best sundowners in Colombo as the big orange globe sinks below the horizon.

For businessmen tired of the standard business hotels and for holidaymakers looking to experience a piece of genuine social history and old fashioned service there can be no other hotel in the frame, it has to be the Galle Face Hotel.