Uzbekistan: A Journey of Discovery

After a late lunch at a traditional Uzbek restaurant, we’ll begin an afternoon’s tour of 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.

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.

Sumptuous tilework, painted ceilings, finely carved wood pillars and exquisite calligraphy adorn the remarkable ensemble of palaces and madrasas surviving in the Itchan Kala. Your guide will lead you through the highlights in a leisurely day, starting at the Kunya-Arc palace, a complex of interlocking royal apartments and courtyards, some of which are adorned with breathtakingly intricate majolica tilework. You’ll have a chance to climb the city’s tallest building, the Islam Khoja Minaret, following a narrow flight of steps that winds up to a tiny viewing platform where a fabulous 360-degrees view over the surrounding rooftops is revealed. The nearby Jama Masjid is famed for its ancient, carved elm pillars, replicas of which are still produced in time honoured fashion just around the corner in workshop occupying the site of a medieval madrasa.

Photographers may want to slot in a second visit to the Kunya Ark Palace in the evening for the sunset views over Khiva’s exotic skyline!

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 at its ensemble of 16th 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 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 Chor Minar is on an altogether smaller scale, but a delightfully quirky structure modelled on the famous ‘Char Minar’ of Hyderabad in India. Dating from the 19th century, it was formerly 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, we’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, the group will be guided around 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, we’ll cross town to see the giant Bibi Khanym mosque, the largest and most impressive in the Islamic world in its day, before a wander around nearby Siab market – a great place for picking up local dried fruit, nuts and textiles. Time permitting, we might also call at a silk carpet factory to see rugs and kilims being woven by hand.

The ruins of Afrosiab sprawl over an expanse of sun-baked wasteland on the northeast side of the city. The site was founded by the Sogdian Dynasty in the 7th century BC and rose to become one of the great trading centres on the Silk Road before its destruction by Genghis Khan in 1220 AD. Although little remains of the city itself, the adjacent museum warrants a visit to see the fabulous 'Ambassador's Painting', a rare survivor from of the Sogdian period, painted over two-and-a-half-thousand years ago yet still vibrant. After lunch, visit Ulugbeg’s extraordinary observatory complex, considered by astronomers as one of the finest of its kind the Islamic world.