The Golden Road to Samarkand

You are met at Tashkent International Airport and transferred to your hotel, with check-in from early afternoon. When you are ready, your guide collects you for a gentle first look at the capital: the Courage Monument, raised where the epicentre of the 1966 earthquake lay, and Amir Timur Square with its shaded plane trees at the centre of the modern city. There is time to walk down Taras Shevchenko Street, the liveliest place in Tashkent for an early dinner, before an early night. Overnight in Tashkent.

A full day in the largest city in Central Asia. You begin in the Old City at the Khast-Imam complex and the Mausoleum of Kaffal Shashi, then browse Chorsu Bazaar and a local pottery gallery. Your guide takes you onto the Tashkent metro, whose stations are decorated with marble, carved ganch and mosaic, to reach the modern centre. The afternoon takes in the State Museum of Applied Arts, with its suzani and ceramics collection, and the facade of the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre. Overnight in Tashkent.

An early transfer to the domestic terminal for the flight west to Urgench, 1,093 km and about an hour and forty minutes. Your driver meets you and it is a further 30 km, roughly forty-five minutes, to Khiva. After checking in you walk into Itchan Kala, the walled inner town and a UNESCO World Heritage site, for the Mukhammad Aminkhan Madrasah, the squat banded stump of the Kalta-Minor minaret and the Juma Mosque, whose flat roof rests on 213 carved wooden columns. Overnight in Khiva.

A second day inside the walls, at your own pace. You visit the Kunya-Ark citadel with the khan's summer mosque, the Tash-Khovli Palace and its tiled harem courtyards, the Mukhammad Rahimkhan Madrasah, and the majolica-covered Pakhlavan Makhmud mausoleum, still a place of pilgrimage. Those with a head for stairs can climb the Islam-Khoja minaret, the tallest in Uzbekistan, for the view over the flat mud roofs. The afternoon is free for the craft workshops and for the walls at sunset, when the brick turns amber. Overnight in Khiva.

Today you cross the Kyzylkum by road, 480 km and seven to eight hours, on the same line the caravans took with their porcelain and spices. The road runs alongside the Amu Darya for a stretch before the desert opens out into low red dunes and saxaul scrub, and you stop along the way to take it in. Cafés on this route are basic, so your guide will arrange a packed lunch the day before. You reach Bukhara in the late afternoon and check in with time to rest. Overnight in Bukhara.

Bukhara is walked rather than driven. You start at the Lyabi-Khauz ensemble around its old pool, visit the Magoki-Attori Mosque sunk below street level and the four-turreted Chor-Minor, then pass through the trading domes where jewellers and hat-makers still work. The centrepiece is the Poi-Kalyan ensemble: the 47-metre Kalyan Minaret, the Kalyan Mosque and the Miri-Arab Madrasah. You finish at the Ark fortress, the Bolo-Khauz Mosque and the tenth-century Ismail Samani mausoleum. Overnight in Bukhara.

A morning outside the old town. You drive to Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa, the summer palace of Bukhara's last emir, where Russian and Bukharan taste collide in the white hall and the peacock garden. You continue to the memorial complex of Bakhouddin Naqshbandi, founder of the Naqshbandi Sufi order and the most visited shrine in the region, and to the Chor-Bakr necropolis at Sumiton. Back in town you see the house museum of Fayzulla Khodjaev, a merchant's mansion of the 1890s. The afternoon is free. Overnight in Bukhara.

You leave Bukhara after breakfast and stop 48 km along the road at Gijduvan, home to the Narzullaev family, potters for six generations. At their ceramics centre you tour the painting workshop, try the brush yourself and see the museum of family work, then join a cooking class and eat what you have made with Gijduvan bread straight from the tandoor. In the afternoon you continue 233 km to Samarkand, arriving in time to check in and see the Registan lit up after dark. Overnight in Samarkand.

The great day of the tour. You begin at Registan Square, ringed by the Ulugbek, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori madrasahs, then walk to the vast remains of the Bibi-Khanum Mosque and through the noise of Siab Bazaar next door. In the afternoon you climb the stairs of the Shakhi-Zinda necropolis, an alley of tiled tombs of Timur's family and courtiers, visit the underground arc of the Ulugbek Observatory, and finish at the Gur-Emir Mausoleum, where Timur himself lies under a slab of dark jade. Overnight in Samarkand.

After breakfast you drive 90 km south over the Takhtakaracha pass to Shakhrisabz, about two hours, where Timur was born and always meant to be buried. You see the two surviving pylons of the Ak-Saray Palace, which took twenty-four years to build and still stand some 40 metres high, the Dor-us Saodat complex with the mausoleum of his son Jakhongir, and the Dor-ut Tilavat ensemble with the Kok-Gumbaz Mosque. Lunch is at the pass, where tandoor lamb kebab is the speciality, before returning to Samarkand. Overnight in Samarkand.

You check out and spend the morning at the Afrasiab Museum, built beside the mounds of the pre-Mongol city and holding the seventh-century ambassadors' mural, then visit the tomb of Saint Daniel on the riverbank. A short drive takes you to Konigil village, where the Meros workshop makes Samarkand paper from mulberry bark by hand, much as it was made in the eighth century. In the afternoon you take the Afrosiyob high-speed train to Tashkent and transfer to the airport. End of your Golden Road journey.