Zanzibar Town Favorites

Favorite thing: In the old Stone Town I prefered more the area around the Central Market, west of the Creek Street than the area around Kenyatta Road. In the market area you find many tiny shops and streetstalls, where you can buy almost everything, food, herbs, spices, shoes, clothing, batteries, electronics.
I enjoyed the colours, smells and flavours and the local atmosphere. Here you don't see many tourists. It's more relaxed to walk here, because the vendors don't bother you by asking to enter their shops or to buy something. It's a good area to buy fruits, herbs and spices.

Favorite thing: At Kenyatta Road you will find the postoffice. In this area you will see a lot of tourists. Here are many bookstores, souvenirs shops, internetcafes and restaurants. From Kenyatta Road at the corner, where the post office is, you can take the Gizenga Road to the east, leading to the backside of the House of Wonders and further for more shops.

You can buy here books, jewellery, paintings, woodcarvings, chests, clothing.

Fondest memory: Finding some interesting books and some authentic jewellery of the Arabic Peninsula.

Favorite thing: The charm of the old Stone Town of Zanzibar is wandering around in its twisting and turning narrow alleyways. Look around and you will see nice mansions, lovely verandahs and the famous decorated doors of Zanzibar, tiny shops and streetstalls and you will meet the friendly local people living there.

Just start to walk, often you don't know exactly in which alleyway you are, but it's difficult to get lost, because at the end you always will reach Kenyatta Road, Vuga Road, Creek Road or the seafront and recognize again some landmarks to find your way.

Fondest memory: Just to walk around and to find your way easily within a few days in this fascinating labyrinth of the old town.

Favorite thing: We came to Zanzibar by plane from Arusha. Just before landing we had a perfect view at Zanzibar Town and could see how the town is surrounded by the Indian Ocean. We could recognise the harbour, some of the larger buildings along the waterfront, but we could also see the high density of buildings in the old part of Stone town with its roofs of iron sheets.

Fondest memory: Somewhere down there must be the old Arab mansion at one of the narrow alleyways, where we would stay for the rest of the week.

Favorite thing: Arrange a guide, whitout our guide we would probably not seen half of the city.

Fondest memory: The market, the old city and the beautiful hadcrafted doors.
Strongest memory is the museum where you can visit the old slave 'cellars'.

Favorite thing: 35 kilometers off the coast of east-central Africa lies the island Zanzibar. Surrounded by the warm blue waters of the Indian Ocean, lined with white beaches and adorned with undulating hills and palm trees that sway in the trade winds, Zanzibar is truly a picturesque island. While relatively small—85 km at its greatest length and 39 km wide—it has played a large role in Africa’s history.
For centuries Persians, Arabs, Indians, Portuguese, British, Asians, North Americans, and, of course, mainland Africans have visited Zanzibar. The main attraction then was the lucrative slave trade. It was also where traders and explorers obtained supplies. Indeed, most of the European explorers of Africa in the 19th century passed through this isle! Little wonder that it came to be called the Gateway to Africa.

Fondest memory: The Sultan of Oman, Sayid Said, left his homeland on the Persian Gulf and settled in Zanzibar during the first half of the 1800’s. As the ruler of this isle, he made the Arab plantation owners stop growing coconuts and instead plant a far more profitable crop: cloves. By the end of his life, clove profits were exceeded only by the slave and ivory trade. So when the slave trade was abolished, Zanzibar became known as the Spice Island. Today it is the world’s chief source of cloves.
Cloves are actually the dried flower buds of a tropical evergreen. The scientific name of the tree is Eugenia caryophyllata. In Zanzibar, the average tree is about 9 m tall. The flower buds are generally harvested when they are reddish-brown in color and are about 1.3 cm in size. A healthy tree can produce up to about 34 kg of the buds. After being harvested they are laid out to dry in the hot tropical sun.

Favorite thing: No visit to Zanzibar is complete without a visit to the beach. You may choose to stay several days in one of the many hotels and resort on one the many beaches of the islands, or you may stay in Stonetown and make a day trip to the beach.