Spice Farm and Stone Town Tour, Zanzibar

An organic spice farm in central Zanzibar

The spice farms lie in the fertile centre of the island around Kizimbani and Dole, around half an hour from Stone Town. Cloves were introduced in the early nineteenth century under the Omani sultans and made Zanzibar's fortune; the farms today grow a mixed garden of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, cardamom, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, lemongrass and ylang-ylang beneath coconut palms, with jackfruit, breadfruit and mango trees in between.

On the Zanzibar spice tour a farm guide leads you plant by plant, crushing a leaf or scraping a root for you to smell and guess, explaining how each spice is harvested and used in cooking, cosmetics and traditional medicine. The visit ends with a spread of fresh seasonal fruit and herbal tea made on the spot, and the chance to buy organic spices straight from the farm. Allow about an hour and a half.

Stone Town's lanes and carved doors

Stone Town is the historic quarter of Zanzibar City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the best-preserved Swahili trading town on the East African coast. Its coral-stone houses went up mostly in the nineteenth century when the island was the seat of the Omani sultanate and the centre of the spice trade, and its lanes are too narrow for cars, which is why a guided Stone Town tour is done on foot.

Your guide reads the town for you: the heavy carved doors, brass-studded in the Indian style or inscribed in the Arab style, the latticed balconies, the mosques and the Hindu temple side by side, and the mix of African, Arab, Persian and Indian influences that shaped the island. Allow around two hours, with time to stop for photographs and shopping in the souvenir lanes.

The Old Fort, Forodhani and the seafront

The seafront is where Stone Town's landmarks gather. The Old Fort was built by Omani Arabs around 1700 on the site of a Portuguese church and now hosts an open-air amphitheatre and craft stalls. Next to it the Forodhani Gardens look out over the harbour and come alive in the evening with food stalls, and behind them rises the House of Wonders, the sultan's ceremonial palace of 1883, the first building in East Africa with electricity and a lift, now under restoration.

The former sultan's palace stands a few steps along the water, and the old dispensary with its carved balconies marks the start of the port. From the seafront the guide walks you inland past the former slave market site and its memorial, which you can enter for a ticket paid on the spot, towards the market.

Darajani Market and daily life

Darajani is Stone Town's main market, built in the early twentieth century and still the place where the town shops: fish auctioned on the stone slabs in the morning, mountains of mango, banana and passion fruit, sacks of cloves and cinnamon, kanga and kitenge fabrics and spice stalls to compare with the farm. It is loud, colourful and the best place to feel the rhythm of the island.

Most visitors ask whether Stone Town is worth visiting on a short trip; two hours with a guide, combined with the spice farm, gives the whole story of the Spice Island in one half day. The morning tour at 8:00 am sees the market at its busiest and the farm before the heat; the afternoon tour at 3:00 pm ends with the seafront in the evening light.