Uzbekistan

Samarkand (UNESCO 'Crossroads of Cultures', 2001) is the principal stop on any Silk Road itinerary — Tamerlane's 14th-century capital and the imperial seat of the Timurid Renaissance, a 2-hour Afrosiyob high-speed train ride from Tashkent. The Registan Square (the three madrasas of Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori, framing what is the most photographed ensemble in Central Asia), the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis (the 'Living King' alleyway of mausoleums in extraordinary blue-tile mosaic, climbing the holy hill north of the old city), the Gur-e-Amir (Tamerlane's own mausoleum, the prototype for the Mughal Taj Mahal in Agra), the Bibi-Khanym Mosque (rebuilt by Tamerlane after his Indian campaigns of the 1390s), the Ulugh Beg Observatory (the 15th-century astronomical instrument that produced the Sultani star catalogue, one of the most accurate before the telescope) and the Siyab Bazaar fill a comfortable 2–3-day stay.

Bukhara (UNESCO Historic Centre, 1993) is the most architecturally preserved medieval Islamic city in Central Asia, an end-to-end 2-day stay 280 km west of Samarkand by Afrosiyob train. The Po-i-Kalyan complex with the 47-metre Kalyan Minaret (the 12th-century 'Tower of Death' that Genghis Khan reputedly spared in 1220), the Lyab-i-Hauz square (the surviving 16th-century pond surrounded by chinar trees, madrasas and tea-houses), the Ark Fortress (the citadel of the Bukhara emirs), the four-towered Char Minar gateway, the Chashma Ayub Mausoleum (Job's spring), the Bolo Hauz Mosque and the surviving Silk Road caravanserais and trading domes (Toki Sarrofon — the moneychangers' dome, Toki Telpak Furushon — the cap-sellers' dome, Toki Zargaron — the jewellers' dome) form an extraordinary medieval ensemble.

Khiva (UNESCO 1990, the first Uzbek site inscribed) is the walled inner town of Itchan Kala 450 km north-west of Bukhara, accessed by a domestic flight to Urgench (UGC, 30 km away) or the overnight train. The Kalta Minor (the unfinished, fully blue-tiled minaret commissioned by Mohammed Amin Khan in the 1850s), the Kunya Ark (the old citadel), the Tash Hauli Palace (with its harem courtyards in carved wood and tile), the Pahlavan Mahmud Mausoleum (the city's patron poet-wrestler), the Juma Mosque (the great hypostyle hall with 218 carved wooden columns dating from the 10th to 19th centuries) and the city walls themselves form an open-air museum of Khorezmian Islamic architecture that can be walked in a single day, with another half-day for the surrounding caravanserai and the desert horizons of the Kyzylkum.

Tashkent (TAS), the capital and largest city in Central Asia (around 2.5 million), is the practical arrival base. The Soviet-modernist metro — whose stations are individual works of art (Kosmonavtlar, Alisher Navoi, Pakhtakor, Mustaqillik Maydoni) and were declassified for photography only in 2018 — is the easiest way to navigate the city. The Chorsu Bazaar under its great blue-tiled cupola, the Khast-Imam complex (housing the Uthman Quran, traditionally one of the oldest in the world, attributed to the 7th-century Caliph Uthman ibn Affan), the Amir Timur Square, the State Museum of History, the Museum of Applied Arts and the Hazrati Imam Friday Mosque make a comfortable 1–2-day opening or closing.

The Fergana Valley in the east — Andijan, Margilan, Kokand, Rishtan — is the agricultural and craft heartland of Uzbekistan. Margilan is the historic centre of the Uzbek silk and ikat-weaving tradition, with the Yodgorlik Silk Factory still hand-weaving with the traditional dyeing and loom techniques (warp-resist dyeing, abrband, has UNESCO Intangible Heritage status). Kokand has the late-19th-century Khan's Palace and the Juma Mosque; Rishtan is the centre of the blue-and-green ceramics tradition; Andijan was the birthplace of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. The valley is also the country's fruit basket — apricots, pomegranates, melons and cherries — and offers a quieter, more agricultural counterpoint to the great monumental cities.

Karakalpakstan in the far west — the autonomous republic with its capital at Nukus — holds two of the country's most surprising attractions. The Savitsky State Museum of Art in Nukus contains the second-largest collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world after the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, assembled by the Soviet-era painter Igor Savitsky in obscurity from the 1950s to the 1980s and famously called 'the Louvre in the desert'. From Nukus, a long-day or two-day side trip reaches Moynaq on the former shore of the Aral Sea, with its rusting fishing-boat 'ship cemetery' on the desiccated seabed — a dramatic and unforgettable landscape, accessible from October to May (summer is extreme heat).

Uzbek cuisine is one of the great kitchens of Central Asia and the cultural backbone of any visit. Plov (palov) — the rice, lamb, carrot, onion, cumin and chickpea pilaf — is the national dish, recognised by UNESCO Intangible Heritage in 2016, with hundreds of regional variants centred on Tashkent (the standard family-feast version), Samarkand (rice and meat layered separately), Bukhara (with chickpeas and raisins) and the Fergana Valley (the original style, often considered the best). Shashlik (skewered lamb and beef from the open mangal grill), lagman (the hand-pulled noodle soup with the Uyghur and Dungan variants), manti and chuchvara dumplings, somsa (the wood-oven baked meat-and-onion pastry), the celebrated round non bread of Samarkand and Bukhara (stamped with chekich patterns), the dried-fruit and nut traditions of Bukhara, and the chaikhana (tea-house) culture with green tea, fresh fruit and the elaborate dasturkhan (laden table) round out the food side. The legendary Uzbek hospitality is consistently the strongest single impression for international travellers.