Churches, Mosques and Temples
Amongst the shops and the teeming streetlife of the Pettah district you will find some of the oldest and most interesting buildings in Colombo, each providing a respite from bargain hunting-most of them doing it through religion of one siort or another.

The Dutch Period Museum (Open daily except Friday: admission fee) On Second Cross Street, at the corner of Prince Street, is one exception. Housed in a typical Dutch colonial residence dating back to 1780, it was for many years used as a Post office. Now, its Original appearance has been recreated using collected furnishing, household goods and maps. This is an old-style museum which seems immune to the frenzy of street life around it.
Inevitably, the Dutch brought their religion with them along with their furniture and the Wolvendaal Kerk begun in 1749, expresses their solid faith in the Dutch Reformation. Within its 1.5-metre (5feet) thick walls, this staunch work of Doric architecture holds a finely carved wooden font, canopied pulpit, crystal lamps and an illustrated Dutch Bible. Its floor is made from tombstones brought from a Dutch Church in Fort. Wolvendaal means " dale of Wolves" but since there were never any Wolves on the island the Dutch must have mistakenly identified a pack of roaming jackals. Today there are no Jackals in pettah either, expect those of the human variety.

Not to beoutdone by Protestants, the Catholic Church is most magnificently represented in pettah by
St Lucia's Cathedral which holds 6,000 wor shippers. This enormous domed catherdral with lonic columns is dedicated to the Virgin St Lucy of Sicily Lgend has it that she had such alluring eyes that she pulled them out to present them to an unwelcome suitor who was enamoured of her beauty. The Building of the catherdral took 34 years to complete and was finished in 1902. Close to it is another Roman Catholic Church dedicated to St Anthony. Every Tuesday, People of Various faiths flock to this church to tap into the miraculous powers attributed to the Saint; this sort of cross-workship happens a good deal in Sri Lanka. Among the devotees will certainly be Hindus who workship down the road in Kotahena Street, where the Muthumariamman Kovil is dedicated to the Goddess pattini - a Very Popular goddess of health and Chastity, also believed to have curative Powers.

Of Course, this being Sri Lanka and, even more so, this being Pettah, sooner or later religion joins with surrounding street-life. Each year the Vel Festivals dedicated to the god Skanda begins at the kathiresan Kovil on Sea Street. The enormous Vel Chariot, intricately carved and Brightly painted, is dragged around the City. Visiting all the Kovils on galle Road followed by hundreds of Devotees.
There are many other Hindu temples and Shrines in Colombo. In Maradana you will find captain's garden Kovil. Other important places of Hindu worship are Sivasaubramania Temple on Kew Road, Slave Island and
Pillaiyar Kovil in Wellawatta.

Perhaps the most Striking building in pettah is at Secind Cross Street. Built in 1909, the jami-Ul-Alfar Mosque is Striped in red and white like a Stupendous respberry layer-cake, with candy minarets and arches shaped like bitemarks. At neighbouring third cross street is the contrastingly dull Memm harnafi Mosque, and Pettah also contains the most important mosque in the city, the Grand Mosque on new Moor Street.