Destinations

Victoria Falls
Okavanago Delta
Mount Kilimanjaro
Indian Ocean Privacy
Exotic Zanzibar
Cape Town
Garden Route Golf
Nakuru Flamingos
Amboseli Elephants
Zambezi River Camps
Interior Zambia
Malawi by the Lake
Skeleton Coast
Kruger National Park
Serengeti

Visit the fabulous Stone Town of Zanzibar City

Centuries old Zanzibar is still the cultural crossroads between Africa and the Arab world - and the perfect start or end of a bespoke East African safari honeymoon with King & King.

Earliest buildings date from 1100. Trade in ivory, wrought iron and slaves carried by dhows goes back further.

Officially, the capital city of semi-autonomous Zanzibar is Zanzibar City on the island of Umguja. The old quarter is known as Stone Town [or 'Mji Mkongwe' meaning 'Old Town' locally] and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With its monuments and mosques, churches and bazaars, markets and mansions, it is the cultural heart of Zanzibar and has hardly changed in 250 years.

Visitors are surprised and delighted by the labyrinth of narrow streets and famous decorated doors - a result of fierce competition by house owners to have the finest doorway masterpieces - and the decorative balconies, minute shops and street stalls. Stone Town's architecture has been influenced by African, Arab, European, Indian and Persian design.

It is called The Spice Island because much of the land area of Zanzibar and adjoing islands has been given over to producing cloves.

Arab style houses are of note because of their enclosed wooden verandas as well as their ornately carved wooden doors. Stone Town's main front is dominated by two exceptional, large buildings: the Beit-el-Ajaib [House of Wonders] and Arab fort. The former built by Sultan Seyyid Barghash in 1883 as a grand ceremonial palace, is now the Museum of History and Culture. It retains its beauty. The fort stands on the site of a Portuguese church. Built at the beginning of the 18th Century by Oman Arabs, who originally took control of the island in 1698, it is often called 'Ngome Kongwe' ['Old Fort'] locally. Until his death in 1856, Said bin Sultan of the Omani Empire, used Stone Town as his capital.

Trade between Africa and Asia, particularly in slaves and cloves and ivory, continued unabated until European colonisation began in the 1800s. Slaves were brought to the coast, often carrying ivory and in chains, by the emissaries of African chiefs who captured them in tribal skirmishes with the express purpose of selling them at the coast in exchange for firearms and other items. Slaves were traded mostly to the Middle East. When the market in slaves was depressed they were disposed of.

The Anglican Cathedral was deliberately built on top of the old slave market. A number of holding cells exist. Livingstone used Stone Town as a base to prepare his last expedition in 1866 and the house that now bears his name was was lent to him by Sultan Seyyid Said. Livingstone launched his campaign to rid the continent of the scourge of slavery from Stone Town.