Asmini Palace

After having done a bit of research, I decided to book a room at the Asmini Palace Hotel.  I did so for two primary reasons: one, it has genuine Zanzibar character and, two, the staff are supposed to be really helpful and pleasant.  I can say that both are true.

I also liked it because it is a bit off the beaten path and, I had thought, would be easy enough to find, being only a couple of turns off of the main street fronting the harbor.  I didn’t quite get the last part right but that’s because I didn’t really think that 6-foot wide alleys were actually “roads” on google maps.

So upon leaving the port I headed with determination, not realizing that distances were a lot shorter than I had expected, and blew right past the three different roads I could have taken to get me there.  When I got to what I knew to be the House of Wonders, I took an alley (read: road) into Stone Town, then started heading backwards in the direction I thought was right.  I quickly realized that my google maps map of the town was next to useless other than to show relative locations of target destinations.  There are no road (read: alley) signs and you just have to go by feel.

At one intersection I stopped, looked left, then looked right and realized, “I’ve seen that building before.”  Thank God for hotel websites with photos of the hotel’s exterior.  I had found the Asmini Palace Hotel!

In this photo, my room was on the top floor, left balcony.  Like many buildings, it has a beautifully carved wooden door, and wooden balconies.  The building has plastered, thick masonry walls, surrounding a center courtyard.  In this case, it’s covered.

Funny thing, the hotel has one of the only three elevators in Stone Town.  I took to walking up the stairs to enjoy the the view as you repeatedly rose from floor to floor.

Once at the top floor, the view down is as impressive as the view up the courtyard.

The room continued the authentic feel of the hotel, with rustic teak furniture.

The room felt like a lot of older hotels along the coasts in the US.  Certainly not luxurious (yes, it had air conditioning, though the mosquito netting was put down for the night), but nice enough.

I also had my own private balcony, not that I was there long enough to really ever use it.

And if the hotel itself didn’t constantly remind me that, yes indeed, I was in Zanzibar, the view off the balcony did.