Grand Silk Road of Uzbekistan

You are met at Tashkent International Airport and transferred to your hotel. After you have settled in, your guide takes you out for an easy introduction to the capital: the Courage Monument, which marks the 1966 earthquake, and Amir Timur Square at the centre of the modern city, followed by free time on Taras Shevchenko Street, where a good part of Tashkent seems to eat. It is a short first day by design, since flights in from Europe usually land at dawn. Overnight in Tashkent.

A full day in the largest city in Central Asia. The morning is spent in the Old City at the Khast-Imam complex, the Mausoleum of Kaffal Shashi and the lanes around Zarkaynar Street, then in Chorsu Bazaar and a neighbouring pottery gallery. Your guide takes you onto the Tashkent metro, whose stations are decorated with marble, carved ganch and mosaic panels, to reach the centre. In the afternoon you visit the State Museum of Applied Arts and see the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre. Overnight in Tashkent.

You transfer to the railway station for the Afrosiyob high-speed train, which covers the 300 km to Samarkand in a little over two hours. Your guide meets you at the platform and takes you straight to Registan Square, the ceremonial heart of the city, where the Ulugbek, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori madrasahs face one another across the paving. In the afternoon you visit the Gur-Emir Mausoleum, whose fluted turquoise dome covers the tombs of Timur, his sons and his grandson Ulugbek. Overnight in Samarkand.

A second day in the city. You start at the Bibi-Khanum Mosque, built on a scale that defeated its own engineers, then walk into Siab Bazaar next door for bread, halva and dried melon. The tiled alley of the Shakhi-Zinda necropolis follows, then the underground arc of the Ulugbek Observatory on the hill above. You end at the Afrasiab Museum, beside the mounds of the pre-Mongol city, where the seventh-century ambassadors' mural still shows envoys arriving at a Sogdian court. Overnight in Samarkand.

After breakfast you drive 90 km south over the Takhtakaracha pass to Shakhrisabz, about two hours, where Timur was born. You see the two surviving pylons of the Ak-Saray Palace, which took twenty-four years to build, the Dor-us Saodat complex with the mausoleum of his son Jakhongir, and the Dor-ut Tilavat ensemble with the Kok-Gumbaz Mosque and the tomb of Timur's father. Lunch is taken at the pass, where the speciality is lamb cooked in a tandoor, before you return to Samarkand. Overnight in Samarkand.

You leave the cities behind and drive north-west to the town of Nurata, where you visit the Chashma complex, a mosque beside a holy spring whose pool is full of fish, and the earth ramparts of the fortress traditionally credited to Alexander the Great. From there the road runs out into the Kyzylkum to a yurt camp on the edge of the steppe. You ride a camel in the late afternoon and eat around the fire, where a Kazakh akyn sings folk songs late into the evening. Overnight in a yurt.

In the morning you go down to Aydarkul, the long shallow lake in the steppe, with time by the water and the option of riding out to it by camel. Then you drive west towards Bukhara, roughly 230 km and four hours, stopping at Gijduvan at the ceramics centre run by the Narzullaev family, potters for six generations, where you can watch the painting, try a brush yourself and see the museum. You reach Bukhara in the late afternoon and check in. Overnight in Bukhara.

Bukhara is walked, not driven. You start at the Lyabi-Khauz ensemble around its stone-edged pool, visit the half-buried Magoki-Attori Mosque and the four-turreted Chor-Minor, and pass through the domed bazaars where jewellers and hat-makers still work. The Poi-Kalyan ensemble is the centrepiece: the 47-metre Kalyan Minaret, the Kalyan Mosque and the Miri-Arab Madrasah. You finish at the Ark fortress, the wooden-columned Bolo-Khauz Mosque and the Ismail Samani mausoleum. Overnight in Bukhara.

This morning you drive out to Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa, the summer palace of the last emir, where Bukharan craftsmen and Russian architects worked side by side and peacocks still wander the garden. You continue to the memorial complex of Bakhouddin Naqshbandi, founder of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, and to the Chor-Bakr necropolis at Sumiton, a walled city of tombs. Back in town you visit the house museum of Fayzulla Khodjaev. The afternoon is free in the old town. Overnight in Bukhara.

Today you cross the Kyzylkum, 480 km and seven to eight hours, on the line the caravans followed with porcelain and spices. The road runs beside the Amu Darya for part of the way before the desert opens out into low dunes and saxaul scrub, and you stop to take in the emptiness. Cafés on the route are basic, so your guide will arrange a packed lunch the day before. You arrive in Khiva in the late afternoon with time to rest before dinner. Overnight in Khiva.

The whole day is spent inside Itchan Kala, the walled inner town and a UNESCO World Heritage site. You visit the Mukhammad Aminkhan and Mukhammad Rahimkhan madrasahs, the banded stump of the Kalta-Minor minaret, the Juma Mosque with its 213 carved wooden columns, the Tash-Khovli Palace and the Pakhlavan Makhmud mausoleum. There is free time for the craft workshops before you transfer 30 km to Urgench airport for the evening flight to Tashkent. Overnight in Tashkent.

You check out at noon and, depending on your flight, have time for anything left undone in the capital: a last look at Chorsu Bazaar for spices and dried apricots, the suzani in the State Museum of Applied Arts, or simply a slow coffee in the shade on Amir Timur Square. Your driver then takes you to Tashkent International Airport for your onward flight. End of your Grand Silk Road journey.