Uzbekistan

Why Uzbekistan

More of the Silk Road survives here than anywhere else. Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva were not reconstructed for tourists — they were lived in continuously, patched, re-tiled and argued over for six hundred years.

You can cross the country by fast train in a morning, which means a two-week trip is genuinely unhurried. Expect long lunches, insistent hospitality, and more turquoise than you thought a colour could be.

What we'd not miss

• The Registan at dusk, when the tour buses leave and the tilework goes violet
• A working bakery in Bukhara's old town at 6am
• The ceramicists of Rishtan, who still mix their own glazes
• Khiva inside the walls, after the gates close