Samarkand and Bukhara Express

Four days is not long, but it is enough for the two cities most people come to Uzbekistan for, and enough to see them properly rather than in passing. What makes it possible is the train. Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara sit on one high-speed line, so a morning in one city and an evening in the next is a couple of hours in a seat, not a day on the road. The journey spends its time where it counts: one full day in each city, and the Registan on the first evening, when it is lit and the square has emptied.

Samarkand and Bukhara are different in kind. Samarkand is monumental, built to be seen from a distance, and its tilework wants the low light of morning or evening. Bukhara is a city of lanes and courtyards that only makes sense on foot, from the Ark to the Kalyan minaret and down through the trading domes to the water at Lyabi-Hauz. Your private guide knows which hours suit which place, and leaves you alone in the ones that ask for silence.

The trains, the hotels and the transfers are booked before you arrive, and your travel designer in Tashkent stays a message away. If you can find a fifth day, it goes well in Bukhara. If you cannot, this is the shape of the journey we would take ourselves.