Silk Road Classic: Samarkand, Bukhara & Khiva

Dilshod meets you at Tashkent International Airport. Uzbekistan is visa-free for UK visitors, so formalities are quick. The transfer to the Hyatt Regency Tashkent gives a first sense of the capital — a green, spacious, Soviet-planned city with broad tree-lined avenues and grand squares. After time to settle in, a gentle introductory evening: dinner of Uzbek classics — flaky samsa, fragrant lagman noodles and the first of many pots of green tea.

A relaxed morning seeing the highlights of Tashkent: the Khast Imam complex, home to the 7th-century Uthman Quran (one of the oldest in the world), the bustling Chorsu Bazaar beneath its great turquoise dome, and a glimpse of the city's famously ornate Metro stations. Early afternoon, board the Afrosiyob high-speed train — smooth, modern and air-conditioned — which sweeps you to Samarkand in a little over two hours. Arrive in the late afternoon and settle into your hotel a short walk from the Registan.

The morning belongs to the Registan — three vast madrasas (Ulugbek, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori) facing one another across a single great square, their portals and minarets sheathed in turquoise and gold tile. Dilshod explains the astronomy of Ulugbek's madrasa, the defiant lions and faces of the Sher-Dor, and the gilded interior of the Tilya-Kori mosque. The whole square is flat and the courtyards are easily explored on the level. In the afternoon, the colossal Bibi-Khanym Mosque — once one of the largest in the Islamic world — and the colourful, covered Siab Bazaar beside it, where you can taste Samarkand's famous round non bread.

A morning at Shah-i-Zinda — the "Avenue of Mausoleums", a narrow lane of tombs whose tilework is widely held to be the finest in Central Asia, each portal a different masterpiece of blue and white. The avenue rises gently; a flight of stone steps at the entrance is the one modest climb, with a slower alternative pace easily arranged. In the afternoon, the Gur-e-Amir — Timur's own mausoleum, beneath its great ribbed turquoise dome — and the remarkable ruins of the Ulugbek Observatory, where the grandson of Timur charted the stars with extraordinary accuracy six centuries ago. A free evening to wander Samarkand's pedestrian streets.

A late-morning Afrosiyob train onward to Bukhara — again smooth, air-conditioned and comfortable, the journey under two hours. Arrive at the holy city, check in, and ease into Bukhara with a gentle first evening at Lyab-i-Hauz: a tranquil stone pool shaded by ancient mulberry trees, ringed by tea houses and madrasas, where locals and travellers alike gather as the heat softens. Dinner beside the water, perhaps with a plate of plov, watching the lamps come on around the pool.

A full day in Bukhara's remarkably intact old town, almost all of it flat and walkable. The Ark — the great mud-brick fortress of the emirs — then the Poi Kalon ensemble: the soaring Kalon Minaret (so magnificent that Genghis Khan is said to have spared it), the Kalon Mosque and the still-working Mir-i-Arab Madrasa facing it across the square. Between sites you pass through the covered trading domes, the Taki bazaars, where Silk Road merchants once dealt in caps, jewellery and money-changing and where artisans still sell carpets, miniatures and copper today. In the afternoon, the exquisite 10th-century Samanid Mausoleum and the Chashma-Ayub shrine.

To avoid a long desert road across the Kyzylkum, a short morning flight (or a comfortable private transfer for those who prefer) carries you west to Urgench, the gateway to Khiva, with a 35-minute drive on to the old town. The first sight of Khiva's mud-brick walls rising from the plain is unforgettable. Check in to a hotel inside or beside the walled Itchan Kala, then a first gentle evening walk within the ramparts as the setting sun turns the brickwork gold and the minarets glow.

A full, unhurried day within the walls of Itchan Kala — a UNESCO World Heritage site so complete it feels like a film set, yet entirely real. The stout, stumpy Kalta Minor minaret in its bands of glazed turquoise; the Kunya Ark fortress and its watchtower; the hundred carved wooden columns of the Juma Mosque; the Tash Hauli palace with its tiled harem courtyards; and the Islam Khoja minaret, the tallest in Khiva. Everything lies within a few hundred flat metres, so the day moves at whatever pace suits you, with tea houses and shaded courtyards for resting. In the late afternoon, the celebrated view from the city walls as the light turns gold.

A morning flight from Urgench back to Tashkent for your final night, or a direct onward connection for those flying home the same evening. If time allows before departure, Dilshod arranges any last purchases — a Bukhara suzani embroidery, a Khiva woodcarving, Samarkand silk — before escorting you to the airport for your international flight home, the blue domes of the Silk Road receding behind you.