Silk Road: Samarkand to Khiva

Arrive in Tashkent, Central Asia's largest city. A short orientation walk in the old town — the Chorsu Bazaar, dome-ceilinged and intoxicating with spice. The first taste of non bread, warm from a tandoor. A group dinner at a courtyard restaurant with live doira drumming.

Tashkent is a palimpsest: a 2,000-year-old city rebuilt after a 1966 earthquake into wide Soviet boulevards, now layered with modern Uzbekistan. We visit the Hazrat Imam complex, the manuscript museum holding one of the world's oldest Qurans, and the underrated Applied Arts Museum with its masterclass in suzani embroidery.

The Afrosiyob high-speed train carries you 300 km south-west to Samarkand in 2 hours — fast enough to feel like a time machine. First stop: the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, the largest mosque of the medieval Islamic world. Then the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, a canyon of turquoise tilework and Timurid tombs.

The Registan at golden hour is one of travel's transformative moments: three madrasas facing a square of polished stone, their facades a mosaic of geometric arabesque that shifts colour with the angle of light. A private evening guided tour, after the tour groups leave, with just the square, the swallows, and the call to prayer.

The drive west follows poplar-lined roads through cotton country and melon fields. Bukhara materialises from the flat plain like a mirage: 140 protected monuments within walking distance of each other. The afternoon: Lyab-i-Hauz pool and the mulberry trees where merchants once traded silk.

Morning with a master plov cook — the rice dish that Uzbeks claim as their birthright and other Central Asian nations envy. Learn the ratio of lamb fat to carrot, the sequence of spice. Afternoon: the Ark Fortress, the city-state within a city, and the Bolo-Hauz Mosque. Evening: a rooftop dinner over the old town.

A 450 km drive across the Kyzylkum Desert — flat, ochre, and hypnotic. Stop at a traditional Uzbek shepherd camp for tea and a walk. Cross the Amu Darya River on a ferry barge. Khiva appears on the horizon with its turquoise minaret, perfectly preserved, perfectly improbable.

Khiva's Ichon-Qala inner city is so intact you expect camel caravans to appear around the corner. We walk the entire circuit of the mud-brick walls, climb the Islam Khoja Minaret for 360-degree desert views, and visit the harem of the Khan's Palace — a labyrinth of iwan arches and carved wooden columns. Sunset from the west gate.

A final morning in Khiva's bazaar — embroidered suzani, carved wooden boxes, dried fruit and nuts by the kilo. Transfer to Urgench airport. Your guide presses a small pomegranate into your hands — Uzbekistan's symbol of fertility and welcome. Until the next Silk Road.