Best Things To Do in Stone Town – Our Expert’s Choice

26 Best Things To Do in Stone Town

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   1. Wander Through Winding Alleys on a Walking Tour

   Mingle with local Zanzibaris in pedestrian-friendly Stone Town

   Stone Town is best explored on foot – not least because many of its atmospheric old alleys are simply too narrow to be traversed any other way. The easiest way to get to grips with the

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   town’s complex layout is a guided tour, which can be arranged through any hotel or local tour operator. Guided tours are particularly suited to time-restricted visitors who want to check all the major landmarks in one condensed outing.Stone Town is safe and easy enough to explore without a guide. Every fresh turn will reveal something different, and the town is compact enough that you’ll never be far from a recognizable landmark. True, newcomers are bound to lose their bearings every so often, but that’s part of the fun. Just embrace the local catchphrases ‘pole pole’ (‘slowly slowly’) and ‘hakuna matata’ (‘no problem’), and take the attitude that you’re not so much lost as seeing new things.

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   2. Visit the Fabulous Freddie Mercury Museum

   This fun installation explores the flamboyant Queen singer’s early years

   It’s a little-known fact that Freddie Mercury was born in Stone Town and spent the first eight years of his life here. The house on Kenyatta Road where young Freddie – then called Farrokh Bulsara –

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   lived with his Indian mother Jer, Irani father Bomi (an employee of the British Colonial Office) and sister Kashmira is now a museum. One of Zanzibar’s most popular attractions, it displays a wealth of material relating to Freddie’s early childhood in Stone Town, his subsequent years spent at boarding school in India, and the popular heyday of Queen.

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   About the Freddie Mercury Museum

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   3. Feast on Grilled Seafood at Forodhani Gardens

   A mass of friendly food stalls opens every evening at this seafront park

   Forodhani Gardens is a lovely spot to visit at any time of day. Opened in 1936 to mark the joint silver jubilee of Sultan Khalifa II and King George V, it feels like an oasis of

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   well-tended greenery on Stone’s Town’s historic waterfront, and is also a great place to watch ordinary Zanzibari folk go about their business. But Forodhani Gardens really comes into its own toward dusk, when its westward orientation allows you to enjoy the sun setting over the sea, and a lively nighttime food market specializes in freshly grilled seafood and other Swahili cuisine.

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   About Forodhani Gardens

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   4. See the Old Slave Market & Anglican Cathedral

   Here, the East African Slave Trade Exhibit explores Zanzibar’s darkest past

   For much of the 19th century, Zanzibar lay at the hub of the East African slave trade. Indeed, it has been estimated that from 1820 onward, more than 50,000 captives from the African interior were sold

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   annually at Stone Town’s Mkunazini Slave Market. The market was finally shut down in 1873, when Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar abolished the slave trade, and the Anglican Cathedral was built on the site.The pulpit of this handsome cathedral occupies an identical location to the slave market’s old whipping post. In the courtyard outside is a powerful Slave Trade Memorial sculpted in 1998 by the Scandinavian artist Clara Sörnäs. More potent still is the East African Slave Trade Exhibit, which stands in a mission outbuilding that dates to 1877. Here, a series of exhibits illustrated with period photos and drawings provides a sobering overview of every aspect of the brutal 19th-century slave trade out of Zanzibar.

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   About the Old Slave Market

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   5. Chill on Urban Shangani Beach

   This central beach is lined with historical hotels and bustles with activity

   Shangani is no conventional beach destination. But it’s a fun place to hang out. Combining the down-to-earth feel of a Swahili fishing beach with a historic waterfront location in Stone Town’s most upmarket quarter, it also

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   boasts a compelling sense of place. Below a row of 19th-century hotel facades you’ll see fishers show off their catch, teenagers kick around a football, and dhows cruise past with billowing sails. Locals swim here, and even if the relatively murky water puts you off taking a dip, it’s worth heading to the cluster of bars and restaurants around Shangani Gardens for sundowners.

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   6. Tap Your Toes to Traditional Taarab Music

   This vibrant Zanzibari fusion style is still played live in Stone Town

   The roots of taarab go back to the 1870s, when Sultan Barghash sent a musician called Mohammed Ibrahim to Egypt to master the qanun (an Arabian stringed instrument). Mohammed later formed the Zanzibar Taarab Orchestra, whose

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   unique fusion of Arabian, Indian and African styles soon became widely mimicked elsewhere in East Africa. Taarab was popularized by Siti Binti Saad, a mold-breaking singer who was born the daughter of slaves but went on to record more than 250 songs – many of which addressed gender-based violence and other social injustices – between 1928 and her death in 1950.Taarab music is still alive and well on Zanzibar. Ask around about places to see live performances. Current artists include the Uwaridi Female Band, Culture Musical Club and Dhow Countries Music Academy Young Stars, and regular venues include the Old Customs House, the Old Fort and the Secret Garden. Alternatively, visit during February’s Sauti za Busara music festival.

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   7. Browse the Stalls of Bustling Darajani Market

   Darajani has been Stone Town’s commercial hub since it opened in the 1880s

   A stroll through the chaotic but welcoming Marikiti Kuu (Great Market) at Darajani, on the east side of Stone Town, is one of Zanzibar’s defining cultural experiences. This is a great place to try some of

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   the delicious tropical fruits and spices for which the island is famed. It also assaults visitors – in the best possible way – with the unfiltered colors, fragrances, sights and sounds of a genuine urban Swahili market.The centerpiece of Darajani is a colonial-style covered market constructed in 1904. Back then, the market was perched on the edge of a wide creek that separated Stone Town from the more modern settlement of Ng’ambo. The creek was filled in as part of a land reclamation program in the 1920s, and nothing remains of the bridge (daraja) hinted at in the market’s name.

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   About Darajani Market

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   8. Tour the Fascinating Princess Salme Museum

   Zanzibar’s most famous daughter is the subject of this quirky museum

   The lovingly curated Princess Salme Museum is dedicated to its namesake, the youngest of Sultan Said’s 36 children. Born in 1844, Salme broke with Omani tradition by insisting on learning to read and write, then later

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   – when aged 21 – by having an affair with the German merchant Rudolph Ruete. In 1866, the pregnant princess set sail for the Port of Aden (Yemen) to avoid the shame and likely punishment associated with having an illegitimate child, particularly one fathered by a non-Muslim.In Aden, Salme took Christian instruction, was baptized under the name Emily, and married Ruete before relocating to Hamburg. Following her husband’s death, Emily Ruete penned the book ‘Memoirs of an Arabian Princess From Zanzibar’, making her the first East African woman to publish an autobiography. Her remarkable story is brought to life by a wealth of photos and memorabilia displayed in this small museum in Stone Town.

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   9. Stroll Around the Historic Old Fort

   Also known as Ngome Kongwe, this is Stone Town’s oldest standing building

   Incorporating the walls of a Portuguese church built in 1598, the Old Fort took its present shape a century later after Zanzibar was captured by Omani Arabs. Its castellated northern facade once occupied a defensive location

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   on the seafront, but today it is stranded a short distance inland overlooking Forodhani Gardens. Over the years, the fort has served as a prison and a railway terminal, but following extensive renovations in 1997, it is now a cultural center with a tree-shaded café, an amphitheater, various craft shops and an art gallery. A wooden staircase climbs to the fortified western ramparts.

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   About the Old Fort

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    10. Join a Spice Tour to a Plantation at Kizimbani

    Smell and taste some of the tropical spices and fruits grown on Zanzibar

    Zanzibar was nicknamed the Spice Island in the 19th century, when it was the world’s most important clove exporter. The cloves were produced on plantations belonging to wealthy Omani slave owners in the vicinity of Kizimbani,

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    which is the most fertile part of Zanzibar due its volcanic soil. On a visit to one of these plantations, which are now government-opened and community-managed, you’ll be shown a variety of local produce: from cloves, vanilla and pepper to jackfruits, pineapples and coconuts. Most tours include a lunchtime stop at a local homestead to sample traditionally spiced Swahili dishes.

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    Zanzibar Spice Farm Tours