UZBEKISTAN · 8 DAYS
Classic Uzbekistan
Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva in eight days: the four Silk Road cities, by high-speed train and across the Kyzylkum desert.
Guide price from US$1,390 per person
Uzbekistan · 1 to 2 days
Tashkent
The capital and the place most trips begin: a Soviet-planned city of wide avenues over an older one of bazaars and mosques.
Why go
Why Tashkent
Tashkent is where the flights land and the trains leave from, and most people give it an afternoon. Give it a day. The old city around Chorsu Bazaar is the real thing, the Khast Imam complex holds one of the oldest Qurans in existence, and the metro is a museum you can ride for the price of a ticket.
It is also the best place in the country to eat. Plov is made in cauldrons the size of a car at the Central Asian Plov Centre, and the restaurants are a generation ahead of the other cities.
See and do
What to see
- Khast Imam complex
- The religious heart of the city. The library holds the Uthman Quran, written in the seventh century.
- Chorsu Bazaar
- Under a huge blue dome: meat, spices, bread, dried fruit and the whole city shopping.
- The metro
- Opened in 1977. Kosmonavtlar, Alisher Navoi and Paxtakor stations are the ones to see.
- Museum of Applied Arts
- Suzani embroidery, ceramics and carved wood in a merchant's house from 1907.
- Amir Timur Square and the Hotel Uzbekistan
- The Soviet centre, for the architecture.
- Chimgan and Charvak
- Mountains and a reservoir ninety minutes away, for a day of air after the cities.
In pictures
A closer look
Practical
When and how
- How long
- 1 to 2 days
- Best time
- April to June and September to October. Hot in July and August, cold with some snow in winter.
- Getting there
- Direct flights from Istanbul, the Gulf, Frankfurt, Paris, London, Seoul, Delhi and most of the CIS. The Afrosiyob train leaves for Samarkand and Bukhara several times a day.
Tours
Trips that go to Tashkent
SAMARKAND · BUKHARA · 5 DAYS
Samarkand and Bukhara
The two great cities in a long weekend: two nights in each, linked by the Afrosiyob train, from and back to Tashkent.
Guide price from US$890 per person
UZBEKISTAN · 12 DAYS
Silk Road in depth
The four cities plus the Fergana Valley's silk and ceramics, Timur's birthplace at Shakhrisabz, and a night in a yurt in the Kyzylkum.
Guide price from US$2,190 per person
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