Three days in Stone Town: the island where a sultan of Oman moved his capital

Two nights in Zanzibar's old town, with the Omani fort and the seafront palaces, the cathedral built on the slave market, the Persian baths, and a boat out to the tortoises on Changuu.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Stone Town
Places
8 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

In 1840 Said bin Sultan, ruler of Oman, moved his court from Muscat to an island off the African coast, because that was where the money was. Zanzibar sat at the hinge of the monsoon trade: dhows came down from Arabia and India on one wind and went back on the other, carrying cloves grown on the island and ivory and enslaved people brought from the interior. Stone Town is what that wealth built, in coral rag and lime plaster, between roughly 1830 and 1900.

It is a small place, a peninsula of maybe a square kilometre, and the streets in it were laid out by nobody. They are too narrow for cars in most of the town, they change name and direction without warning, and they open without any transition into a courtyard, a mosque, a shop selling nothing but rope, or the sea. The doors are the thing people photograph: heavy carved teak with brass spikes, Indian on one street and Omani on the next. UNESCO listed the whole town in 2000, and a good part of it is still held up by scaffolding.

Three days gets you the town at the right speed. An afternoon on the seafront, a full day inside the lanes with a boat trip after it, and a last morning in the two palaces on the waterfront. Nobody comes to Zanzibar only for Stone Town, and almost everybody who skips it regrets it, because the beaches on the east coast are beautiful and have no history in them at all.

Highlights

  • The Anglican cathedral that missionaries put straight on top of the last open slave market
  • Forodhani Gardens after dark, when the seafront turns into a grill and half the town turns up
  • The Old Fort, thrown up by the Omanis on the ruins of a Portuguese church
  • Changuu island, where Aldabra tortoises given by the Seychelles in 1919 are still going

Where to stay

Stone Town, two nights

The town occupies a triangular peninsula with the sea on two sides and Creek Road, once an actual creek, closing the third. The seafront on the western side carries the fort, the palaces and Forodhani Gardens, and it is the only part with a view and a breeze. Behind it, the lanes run inland in no discernible pattern through the old quarters of Shangani, Mkunazini, Malindi and Kiponda, and come out at the Darajani market, which is where the town actually shops.

The buildings are coral rag bound with lime, which is a soft and forgiving material and a poor one, so the town has spent its whole existence being repaired. Verandas and balconies were added by Indian merchants, the plain heavy street fronts and the studded doors are Omani, and the arches and cast iron came later from the British. What holds it together is that everything was built to the same three or four storeys in the same pale stone.

Some of it is in poor condition, some of it has been restored beautifully, and the difference between the two is often a single wall. The most famous building in the town, the House of Wonders, partly collapsed in 2020 and is a construction site behind hoardings. That is Stone Town: extraordinary, fragile and lived in by about sixteen thousand people who are not tourists.

Day by day

Day 1 in Stone Town

The Old Fort, the seafront, and Forodhani after dark

Get your bearings on the waterfront, because it is the one part of the town with straight lines in it. The Old Fort is the oldest building here: a heavy square Omani fortress with round bastions, put up around the end of the seventeenth century after the Omanis drove out the Portuguese, on the site of the Portuguese church. It has been a garrison, a prison and a railway depot, and the courtyard is now an open-air venue with craft stalls, a cafe and an amphitheatre used for the film and music festivals.

Next door stands the House of Wonders, which was the tallest and grandest building on the East African coast when Sultan Barghash finished it in 1883, the first in Zanzibar with electric light and an electric lift. It was shelled by the Royal Navy in 1896 during the Anglo-Zanzibar war, a conflict that lasted under an hour and remains the shortest on record. Part of it came down in December 2020 and it has been closed and under reconstruction ever since, so this is an exterior stop, and it is still worth the ten minutes.

Then stay for the evening. Forodhani Gardens, the strip of park between the palaces and the sea, fills up after sunset with grills and trestle tables: skewers of fish and octopus, sugarcane juice pressed in front of you, urojo soup, and the fried stuffed pancake sold as Zanzibar pizza. Locals outnumber visitors, prices are agreed before the food arrives, and the seawall is where the town's teenagers spend the evening throwing themselves into the harbour.

  1. 16:00

    Old Fort

    Historic

    Free to walk into, open all day, with craft stalls and a cafe in the courtyard. Half an hour unless something is on.

  2. 17:15

    House of Wonders

    Architecture

    Closed and under reconstruction since it partly collapsed in 2020. Seen from the seafront, which is where the photograph is anyway.

  3. 18:30

    Forodhani Gardens

    Leisure

    The food market sets up as the light goes and runs into the evening. Agree prices first and eat what is cooked in front of you.

With more time: St Joseph's Cathedral, built by French missionaries with two spires that show up from the sea, is five minutes inland, and the Freddie Mercury Museum near the port is thin on exhibits and has a good view of the harbour, which its own signage nearly admits.

Day 2 in Stone Town

The slave market, the Persian baths, and a boat to Changuu

Go to the Anglican cathedral first. Zanzibar ran the largest slave market on the East African coast, and when the trade was finally forced closed by treaty in 1873, the missionaries bought the site and built Christ Church on top of it. The altar is said to stand where the whipping post was. Next to it are underground chambers where people were held before sale, low enough that you cannot stand up in them, and a memorial of five figures in a pit wearing real chains. It is a small site and a difficult one, and it is the single most important thing in Stone Town.

Walk on into the lanes towards the Hamamni baths, built for Sultan Barghash at the end of the nineteenth century by Persian architects and the first public baths on the island. They have not held water for a long time, and what you get is a warden with a key and a set of empty vaulted rooms, cold room to hot room, with the flues and the plunge pools intact. It takes twenty minutes and it is the best surviving piece of nineteenth century domestic engineering in the town. The route there through Mkunazini is the real pleasure: workshops, schools, doorways, and no idea where you are.

In the afternoon take a boat from the beach in front of Forodhani out to Changuu, twenty minutes offshore. It was bought as a place to hold enslaved people, then built as a quarantine station and a prison that never received a prisoner, and it is now known for the Aldabra giant tortoises presented by the Seychelles in 1919. Several of them are over a hundred years old and their ages are painted on their shells. There is a reef off the beach worth a mask, and the ruins are ten minutes.

  1. 09:00

    Anglican Cathedral

    Religious

    Ticketed, including the holding chambers and the memorial. Allow an hour and take the guide, who will tell you what the plaques do not.

  2. 11:00

    Hamamni Persian Baths

    Other

    Ticketed, dry, and about twenty minutes. If the door is shut, the caretaker is usually within shouting distance.

  3. 12:30

    Lunch in the lanes

    Eat

    Biryani, pilau or grilled fish with coconut rice at one of the small rooftop places inland. Cheaper and better than the seafront.

  4. 14:00

    Changuu Island

    Nature

    Boats leave from the Forodhani beach and take about twenty minutes. Island entry is paid on arrival, and take a mask for the reef.

With more time: Instead of the boat, a Swahili cooking class is a good half day and explains most of what you have been eating: cloves, cardamom, tamarind and coconut, usually with a stop at a spice farm outside town. Livingstone's House, north of the centre, is where David Livingstone put together his last expedition and is now an office with a plaque.

Day 3 in Stone Town

The Palace Museum and the Old Dispensary

The Palace Museum on the seafront was the sultans' town residence, built in the late nineteenth century and used by the ruling family until the revolution of 1964 swept them out in a matter of days. Inside, the rooms are furnished as they were: heavy Victorian furniture bought by mail from England, Omani chests, chandeliers, and photographs of a court that was simultaneously Arab, African and improbably interested in Manchester. The rooms devoted to Princess Salme, the sultan's daughter who eloped with a German merchant in 1866 and wrote the first known autobiography by an Arab woman, are the reason to come.

Five minutes further along the front is the Old Dispensary, put up between 1887 and 1894 by Tharia Topan, an Ismaili merchant who had made a fortune as the sultan's customs master, and intended as a hospital for the poor. It is the most decorated building in Stone Town: carved wooden balconies on three floors, stained glass, a clock tower, and an interior courtyard that goes all the way up. It was a ruin by the 1980s and was restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which is why it is still standing when its neighbours are not.

That leaves the middle of the day for the ferry or the airport, or for the drive across the island to a beach. Nungwi and Kendwa in the north have the swimming that does not disappear at low tide; Paje and Jambiani on the east coast have the kitesurfing and the enormous tidal flats. Either is under two hours.

  1. 09:15

    Palace Museum

    Historic

    Ticketed, an hour, and the Princess Salme rooms are upstairs. Shoulders and knees covered.

  2. 11:00

    Old Dispensary

    Historic

    Restored and usually open to walk into during business hours. Twenty minutes for the courtyard and the balconies.

  3. 12:30

    Ferry, flight or the road to the coast

    Travel

    Twenty minutes to the airport, five to the ferry terminal, or ninety minutes across the island to the east coast.

With more time: Malindi mosque, near the port, dates from the 1830s and has an unusual cone-shaped minaret, one of only a handful of that shape on the coast, and Darajani market on Creek Road is where the town buys its fish, fruit and spices, at its best before eight in the morning.

Before you go

Getting in and out

Abeid Amani Karume International is about 6 km southeast of Stone Town and takes flights from Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Nairobi, Mombasa and a growing list of European and Gulf cities. The taxi in takes twenty minutes and the fare is agreed at the rank.

The fast ferries from Dar es Salaam are the better arrival: about two hours across, several sailings a day, and you come into the port at the edge of the old town rather than a runway in a field. Book the day before and take the upper deck. Slower boats also run to Pemba.

Zanzibar is semi-autonomous, so you clear immigration on arrival even coming from mainland Tanzania on a domestic flight. Have your passport out and the yellow fever certificate to hand if you have come from an affected country.

Where to stay

Stay inside the old town. The whole point of these three days is being able to walk out of the door into the lanes at seven in the morning, and the converted merchant houses that make up most of the hotels here are worth the narrow stairs and the occasional plumbing.

The seafront strip north of the Old Fort has the larger and more comfortable hotels, with rooftop terraces over the water. Inland, the rooms are cheaper, darker and more atmospheric, and you will get lost coming home for the first two nights.

The beach hotels at Nungwi, Kendwa, Paje and Jambiani are an hour to ninety minutes away by road and are a separate holiday. Do the town first and move afterwards, rather than commuting.

Getting around

You walk. Cars cannot get down most of the streets in the old town and a map is close to useless, because the lanes are unnamed and the phone signal drops between the walls. Getting lost is normal and harmless: the sea is never more than a few hundred metres away in one direction or another, and asking usually produces an escort.

For anything outside the town, taxis are easy to arrange through a hotel and priced by the trip. Dala-dalas, the converted pickup minibuses, run from Darajani market to every village on the island for almost nothing and take a very long time.

The boats to Changuu and to the sandbanks leave from the strip of beach below the gardens, and the price covers the boat, not the island entry fee, which is paid on arrival.

Heat, dress and Ramadan

It is hot and humid year round. The long rains fall in April and May, when a lot of places on the island close, and the short rains come in November. June to October is dry and breezy and the most comfortable time to walk around a town with no shade in it.

Zanzibar is almost entirely Muslim and Stone Town is a residential town, not a resort. Shoulders and knees covered is the expectation for men and women away from the beach, and beachwear in the lanes reads as rudeness rather than as a fashion choice.

During Ramadan many restaurants close during daylight hours and eating or drinking in the street is not done. Evenings, on the other hand, are the best time of the year to be here.

Stone Town is a place to walk in rather than to tick off. The fort, the cathedral and the baths are the fixed points, and the rest is what you find between them: a door with brass spikes meant to stop war elephants that never existed on this coast, a courtyard full of schoolchildren, a man selling nothing but coconut graters, the smell of cloves outside a warehouse.

From here the island opens out. The spice farms are half an hour inland and are worth doing properly rather than as a stop on the way somewhere. Jozani forest in the middle of the island has the red colobus monkey that lives nowhere else. And the coasts are as different as they are close: reef and deep water in the north, and in the east a tide that goes out for a kilometre and comes back over the sand at walking pace.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How long do I need in Stone Town?
Two nights, which is what these three days assume. The town is about a square kilometre and the sights are close together, but the pleasure of it is walking without a destination, and one night does not leave room for that. Add beach days afterwards rather than cutting the town short.
Can I see the House of Wonders?
Only from outside. It partly collapsed in December 2020 and has been closed for reconstruction since, behind hoardings and scaffolding. The Palace Museum next door is open and covers much of the same history.
Is it better to fly or take the ferry from Dar es Salaam?
The ferry, if you have the time. Two hours across, several sailings a day, and it lands you at the edge of the old town rather than in a field 6 km out. Flying takes twenty minutes and costs several times as much.
What should I wear?
Shoulders and knees covered anywhere away from a beach or a hotel pool. Zanzibar is almost entirely Muslim and Stone Town is a working residential town, so beachwear in the lanes causes real offence. Loose cotton and sandals, because it is humid all year.
When is the best time to visit?
June to October is dry, breezy and the easiest for walking. January and February are hot and bright between the rains. The long rains in April and May shut a good deal of the island, and November brings shorter afternoon storms.
Should I combine Stone Town with the beaches?
Yes, and in that order. Two nights in the town, then move to Nungwi, Kendwa, Paje or Jambiani, all of them between an hour and ninety minutes away. Copy these three days and add as many beach nights on the end as your flight allows.