The Doors of Zanzibar...

Details on a door...

Just as you enter the old town, one of the things which strike first are the gorgeous Doors of Zanzibar. Almost every single house is adorned with these beautiful wooden doors, which almost invite you to come inside.

The doors in the town are of three key types, and the most important and common ones are the Arab and Indian doors - both visitors who came for trade to Zanzibar and then settled down a few generations ago.

The Arabs were much richer and you can easily see that from their huge and finely carved doors, often with verses from the holy Koran. The Indian homes are much humbler and are generally identified by the brass knobs. The brass knobs come from the tradition of preventing the houses to be brought down by elephants, of course, here the knobs are purely decorative. The doors on the homes of the original Zanzibarians are the simplest of them all.

Door with a no parking sign :)

The doors also have some interesting symbols like flowers, pineapples, fish scales etc. each motif represented something about the inhabitant of the house - for instance fish-scales represented the house of a fisherman.

However, not all doors here are old, some are also new though they are made in a very similar style. I even saw an artist working on one of those in an alley in the city. However, to me the old ones in old houses are far more charming as you can see the history of some of the houses through the doors that welcome you :)

Here are a few interesting ones that I came across...

Also, if you are looking for a guided tour of the stone town, here's an excellent post about it: Stone Town Tour, Zanzibar.