Dhow Palace Hotel

Dhow Palace sits on Baghani Street in Shangani, the seaward corner of Stone Town where the old consulates and merchant houses stand shoulder to shoulder in lanes too narrow for two cars. The house was built as a merchant family home and became a hotel in 1993, with a second wing and the courtyard swimming pool added in 2005. Thirty rooms are arranged over several floors around two courtyards, so the noise of the town drops away the moment you step through the door, and what you hear instead is water in the courtyard and the call to prayer from the mosques around you.

The character of the place is in its furniture. Carved Zanzibari doors, brass bound chests, four poster beds under mosquito netting, sunken tiled baths in some of the rooms, and antique pieces that mix Omani, Indian and African work, which is what Stone Town itself is made of. Rooms are air conditioned and have a fridge, a kettle, satellite television and wifi, and the quietest of them look into the courtyard rather than the street. Breakfast is served downstairs in the courtyard, and the rooftop terrace is where guests sit in the late afternoon, looking over the tin and tile roofs of the old town to the water. The restaurant and the rooftop serve soft drinks only, which is a long standing rule of the house.

It suits the traveller who wants to be inside the old town rather than beside it. Forodhani Gardens and the night food stalls are about five minutes away, the Old Fort three, the Hamamni baths six, the Anglican cathedral and the former slave market about eight, and the Darajani market twelve. Boats to Prison Island and the Safari Blue sandbanks leave from the beach a few minutes from the door, and the drive down to Jozani Forest for the red colobus takes about an hour. Most guests stay two or three nights, either side of a safari or before moving on to a beach on the east or north coast.

Practical things worth knowing. The hotel is about seven and a half kilometres from Abeid Amani Karume International Airport, fifteen to twenty minutes by road, and it has its own parking, so a car or taxi reaches the street frontage. Larger vehicles stop short of the building and the staff carry bags through the lanes, which is normal everywhere in Stone Town. The building is on several floors with a lift, but it is an old house and it is not step free. Children are welcome, cots are provided, and the courtyard pool is shallow enough for families.