Great Cities of the Silk Road

After a late lunch at a traditional Uzbek restaurant, enjoy a gentle afternoon’s tour beginning at the Hast Imam complex in old Tashkent, whose handsome 14th-century mosques, tomb and madrasa today workshops for traditional crafts, as well as one of the world’s oldest Qurans. From there, head across town to the centrepiece of the modern city, Amir Timur Square, home to a huge equestrian statue of Uzbekistan’s eponymous national hero, Amir Timur, better known in the West as ‘Tamerlane’. On the western side, the gleaming white-marble Congress Hall is crowned by a pair of silver storks, symbols of ‘Peace and Happiness’.

Among the many items on display at the National Museum are some of the Asia’s most sumptuous antique carpets, a collection of ancient suzani embroidered silk wall hangings and Buddhist figurines from the pre-Islamic Silk Road era. Lunch today could be at the famous National Plov Centre, high altar of the national dish of Uzbekistan – a regional take on pulao made with sizzling lamb, rice, vegetables and apricots. Afterwards, consider a visit to Tashkent’s bustling market – Chorsu Bazaar – where everything from embroidered Uzbek hats to wedding gowns and bowls of juicy mulberries are on sale. Photographers will be in their element.

A full day’s sightseeing in Khiva today in the company of your guide focusses on the principal highlights of the old walled city, the Itchan-Kala, which has been beautifully restored and is traffic free. As well as monuments, there are lots of crafts stalls and workshops to browse around the backstreets.

Nearly a mile wide, the Amru Darya is still an impressive sight, despite the fact much of its water is nowadays diverted into vast fields of cotton. Your lunch stop today will be at a traditional Uzbek restaurant just off the highway, which serves particularly succulent kebabs, salads and freshly baked bread. All being well, you should arrive in Bukhara in time for a short wander around the historic centre, near your hotel, before supper. Start at the shimmering Lyab-i Hauz pond and its ensemble of 16^th-century architectural masterpieces.

Most of Bukhara’s standout buildings were erected by the Timurid Dynasty and the Shaybanids in the 16th century, after the city had been destroyed by Genghis Kahn. One of the only structures spared by the Mongol warlord was the Minara-i Kalan, a magnificent brick minaret whose striking form dominates the Poi-i-Kalan complex. Below it, facing each other from opposite sides of a large piazza, are the mosaic-tiled facades and turquoise domes of the Kalan Mosque and Mir-i Arab Madrasa – two of the great architectural masterpieces of the old Silk Road.

In the afternoon, your guide will accompany you on visits to local craft workshops, among them Bukhara’s famous puppet centre.

The Ark citadel is a more implacable and functional edifice than the nearby Poi-i-Kalan, its sloping walls enclosing the labyrinthine palace where the British emissaries, Stoddart and Conolly, met with untimely deaths in 1842 at the hands of the redoubtable Khan of Bukhara. Most of what stands today is a modern reconstruction. The last ruler, Alim Khan, ordered the building be blown up rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1920.

On the eastern outskirts of the city, the four-towered, delightfully quirky Chor Minar is on an altogether smaller scale. Modelled on the famous ‘Char Minar’ of Hyderabad in India, the building dates from the 19th century, when it was prized by Sufi mystics and musicians for its wonderful acoustics.

At their workshop in the town of Gijduvan, the Narzullayev family have been making ceramics for five generations, according to methods used in the area for literally thousands of years. You’ll see how pots are thrown and fired in an old-style kiln, with glazes made from desert plants and local minerals (ground in situ on a wheel driven by a donkey). On arrival in Samarkand, you’ll have time to freshen up at your hotel before visiting the Gur-i Amir, where the final resting place of the great king is marked by a beautiful slab of polished Chinese jade – thought to be the largest of its kind in the world.

Located 50 miles (80km) south of Samarkand, Shakrisabz was the birthplace of Timur – a fact celebrated by a crop of wonderful 14th and 15th century monuments, foremost among them the majestic Kok Gumbaz mosque, with its three vibrant turquoise domes. The remnants of Timur’s own Summer Palace, the Ak-Saray, come a close second: sublime blue, white and gold mosaics embellish the surviving gateway of the building. After lunch, there will be time to visit the site’s remaining monuments before returning to Samarkand ahead of a sunset wander around the glazed-tiled tombs of the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, where many of the Timurid Queens and concubines were laid to rest.

After breakfast, you’ll be driven to the most spectacular ensemble of buildings in all of Central Asia – Samarkand’s ‘Registan’. The complex is made up three separate madrasas, or theological colleges, lining three sides of a huge plaza. Behind the richly decorated facades are hidden cloistered courtyards where the former priests’ and students cells today hold small crafts and souvenir shops. At one, you can listen to traditional Uzbek instruments being played. In another, majolica tiles are made in time-honoured fashion.

After the Registan, you could cross town to see the giant Bibi Khanym mosque, once the largest and most impressive on the Silk Road, before a wander around nearby Siab market – a great place for picking up local dried fruit, nuts and textiles. Time permitting, you might also want to call at the silk carpet factory to see rugs and kilims being woven by hand.