Tashkent Weekend – Metro, Bazaars & Plov

You are met at Tashkent International Airport and transferred to your hotel. Once you have checked in your guide takes you into the old city, beginning at the Khast-Imam Complex with the Barak-Khan Madrasah, the Tillya-Sheikh Mosque and its library of ancient Qurans, and the Mausoleum of Abu Bakr Kaffal Shashi. You walk the newly restored Zarkaynar Street and then plunge into Chorsu Bazaar, where the great blue dome covers rows of spices, dried fruit and butchers' stalls, with a pottery gallery alongside. Dinner is in the old town. Overnight in Tashkent.

Today belongs to the twentieth-century capital. You ride the Tashkent Metro, the oldest in Central Asia, stopping to photograph its chandeliered halls — the space-themed Kosmonavtlar station and the blue domes of Alisher Navoi among them. Above ground you see the Courage Monument, the Palace of Peoples' Friendship, Hotel Uzbekistan and Independence Square. At midday you join the queue at the Central Asian Plov Centre, where the rice is turned in cauldrons the size of paddling pools. The afternoon takes in the Museum of Applied Arts and the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre.

After breakfast you visit the white marble Minor Mosque on the bank of the Ankhor canal, then the Islamic Civilization Center and the State Museum of History of Uzbekistan, which sets out the region's Sogdian and Buddhist past. If your flight is late you have free time on Broadway and around Amir Timur Square for coffee, souvenirs and a last look at the city, with your car and guide at your disposal. You are then transferred to Tashkent International Airport. This marks the end of your Tashkent weekend.