Uzbekistan Travel Guide: The Silk Road Cities That Spent Centuries Waiting for You

Registan Square at dusk, and what it does to you

Three madrasas face each other across a plaza in Samarkand. They are covered floor to ceiling in turquoise and cobalt blue tilework, and they are enormous. Tamerlane built this city as the capital of an empire that ran from Turkey to India, and the Registan was where he wanted visitors to understand the scale of the project.

The tilework is not decorative the way a European cathedral is decorated. The patterns are mathematical. Tessellations, geometric constructions, interlocking shapes that encode Islamic ideas about infinity. The mineral glazes that produce the blues and turquoises have survived 600 years of sun and frost. Restoration is ongoing and sometimes clumsy, but the overall effect at sunset, when the floodlights come on and the tourists thin out, does something to you that is hard to explain without sounding ridiculous.

The Shah-i-Zinda necropolis is a narrow alley of tiled mausoleums climbing a hill, and the detail up close is finer than anything in the Registan. Bibi-Khanym Mosque, the largest in the Islamic world in 1404, partially collapsed under its own ambition and has been rebuilt. Ulugh Beg's observatory, where Tamerlane's astronomer grandson charted 1,000 stars before the telescope existed, is a short taxi ride away. Two days minimum.

Bukhara gets under your skin differently

Samarkand is about individual monuments. Bukhara is about accumulation. A UNESCO-listed old town with 140 structures from the 9th to 17th centuries, and none of them are isolated landmarks. A minaret here, a caravanserai there, a covered bazaar that has been a covered bazaar since the actual Silk Road was an actual road.

The Kalon Minaret, 47 metres tall, was built in 1127. Genghis Khan burned the city and spared the minaret. The Lyab-i-Hauz plaza has a pool shaded by mulberry trees, and the correct thing to do is sit there with tea and watch the light change on the surrounding madrasas. The Jewish quarter has a working synagogue and the fading traces of a trading community that connected Central Asia to everywhere.

The trading domes are the surprise. Toqi-Sarrafon was the moneychangers' dome. Toqi-Telpak Furushon was for hats. Toqi-Zargaron was for jewellers. They are still functioning markets under 16th-century vaulted ceilings. You buy silk scarves in the same building where people have been buying silk scarves for 500 years. The scale is modest but the continuity is staggering.

Two to three days. Walk slowly.

Khiva in the early morning, before the buses arrive

Khiva's inner city, Itchan Kala, is a walled rectangle of mud-brick buildings. The walls are intact. The streets are unpaved. Until the 19th century this was a khanate that ran on the slave trade. Now it is the most photogenic square kilometre in Central Asia.

Stay inside the walls. The guesthouses are cheap and basic. Walk the streets at dawn, when the tour groups are still in Urgench eating hotel breakfast, and the light turns the mud-brick gold. The Kalta Minor Minaret, left unfinished and covered in vivid blue tile, is the signature image. The Juma Mosque has 213 carved wooden columns, some from the 10th century, in a dim forest-like interior.

One full day is enough. Two if you want the atmosphere rather than the checklist.

One train changed the whole trip

The Afrosiyob is a Spanish-built high-speed train. Tashkent to Samarkand in two hours. Samarkand to Bukhara in ninety minutes. Up to 250 km/h. Business class costs $15-20 per leg. This single piece of infrastructure turned what used to be a multi-day overland slog into a smooth triangle.

Khiva is the exception. It is far west, and the train connection is slow. Fly from Bukhara or Tashkent to Urgench, which is 30 minutes from Khiva by taxi. The standard circuit: Tashkent, train to Samarkand, train to Bukhara, fly to Urgench for Khiva, fly back to Tashkent. Seven to eight days total.

Book train tickets on the Uzbekistan Railways website or at the station. Popular departures sell out a few days ahead in spring and autumn.

Plov, samsa, and the $2 lunch

Plov is rice pilaf with lamb, carrots and chickpeas, cooked in a single massive cauldron. Every city claims the best version. The Plov Centre in Tashkent cooks a thousand kilos daily in one pot and serves it until it runs out, usually by early afternoon.

Samsa are pastry pockets filled with lamb and onion, baked in a tandoor. Street price: 3,000-5,000 som ($0.25-0.40). Lagman is hand-pulled noodle soup borrowed from the Uighur tradition. Shashlik is grilled meat on skewers. Non is round flatbread baked in a clay oven and torn by hand at the table.

A full restaurant meal costs $1.50-2.50. Tea is included and refilled without asking. Tashkent's Chorsu Bazaar has a domed hall of spices, dried fruits and freshly baked non that is worth visiting even if you are not hungry.

The food is heavy, carb-loaded and meat-forward. Vegetarian options exist but you have to look. The quality is honest and the prices are some of the lowest in the world.

Tashkent, visas and the heat problem

Tashkent is where you land. It is a Soviet-planned city with a metro system whose stations were designed as underground palaces. That is worth seeing. The Chorsu Bazaar and the Amir Timur Museum fill an afternoon. Give it a day, then get on the train.

Most nationalities enter visa-free for 30 days. Registration at your hotel is automatic and legally required. The currency is the som. ATMs work in cities. Cash is useful in bazaars and villages. The dollar is understood at hotels.

Summer is the problem. June through August regularly exceeds 40C, and there is no shade in the Silk Road plazas. April-May and September-October are the sweet spots: clear skies, warm days, bearable temperatures. Winter is cold and dry and empty. If you want the monuments to yourself and do not mind the cold, December works.

English is limited outside the tourist circuit. Russian and Uzbek are the working languages. Download offline translation before you leave Tashkent.