Galle Face Area
Galle Face Green, immediately south of the Fort, is a long, thin park which fills up with food stalls on week- end evenings and is a popular meeting place for local people. A narrow arm of Beira Lake separates this dis- trict from Slave Island, actl!ally a peninsula where the Dutch imprisoned slaves from their Asian colonies.

Galle Road, Colombo's long seafront boulevard, runs south from Galle Face Green, eventually becoming the main coastal road to Galle and the south. It's always crowded with traffic and short on charm, but as the city's main thoroughfare it also has some of the best shopping and a number of important buildings, includ- ing the official residence of Sri Lanka's premier, the US Embassy, the Briti&h High Commission and some of the city's top hotels.