All breakfasts, three lunches and four dinners are included.

Please note, vegetarian food choices may be rather limited. If you are strictly vegetarian, or have any special dietary requirements, please notify us well in advance. In Uzbekistan, the availability of certain specialised products for restricted diets, eg gluten-free or dairy-free, is minimal or non-existent and we strongly recommend you bring these specialised dietary items from home.

Drinking water is included and will be provided in large containers for you to refill your bottle – please bring a reusable bottle with you.

Discover the Savitsky Museum, whose daring curator Igor Savitsky preserved Soviet avant-garde works once suppressed by censors. Galleries reveal modernist experiments alongside jewelry, carpets, and costumes of Karakalpakstan.

Hear how collections were assembled in the remote steppe, safeguarding artists’ legacies. The blend of radical canvases and Karakalpak culture makes this institution one of Central Asia’s most surprising and significant museums.

Opt to ride Bactrian camels—the gentle, two-humped icons of Central Asian caravans—across rippled sands near the yurt camp. Handlers lead a calm loop suited to first-timers, with time for photos.

Feel the slow sway above the silken sands and learn how camels carried salt, silk, and spices between oasis towns. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore Registan Square, framed by the Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor, and Tilya-Kori madrasas, where cobalt domes and golden interiors recall the height of Timurid power. Step inside Gur-e-Amir, Tamerlane’s mausoleum, to study shimmering tiles and carved onyx.

Continue to the restored Bibi-Khanym Mosque and the nearby bazaar, where mounds of dried fruit and handwoven textiles color the lanes. Your guide connects architecture with empire-building, astronomy, and artistry that made Samarkand the Silk Road’s magnetic heart.

Visit the Ulugbek Observatory to view the monumental underground sextant arc where the 15th-century ruler-astronomer measured the heavens with remarkable precision. The site connects science, statecraft, and stargazing in the Timurid age.

Walk the avenue of Shah-i-Zinda, a hillside procession of glazed-tile mausoleums. Lapis and turquoise ornamentation frames serene courtyards, each tomb a study in calligraphy and pattern. Stories of patrons, artisans, and pilgrimage bring this sacred complex to life.

Get hands-on at a ceramics painting masterclass, learning folk motifs and cobalt palettes from Samarkand artisans. Brushwork techniques are demonstrated before you decorate your own tile or small bowl.

Nearby, see silk paper made in Konigil village using mulberry bark and medieval-style waterwheels. Craftspeople explain pulp preparation, pressing, and polishing, revealing how this durable paper once carried scholarship and art across the Silk Road.

Walk the lanes of Sentyab village, where canals feed orchards and mud-brick homes face sun-warmed courtyards. The Nurata Mountains rise above, with goat bells and apricot trees marking a slower rhythm of life.

Meet families who tend small plots and livestock, and pause by a stream for mountain views. Your guide explains seasonal work, water-sharing traditions, and rural customs that sustain these remote mountain homesteads.

Roll up your sleeves to cook a traditional Uzbek dish alongside your hosts, from shaping non bread to stirring herb-scented stews. Ingredients come from garden plots and local flocks.

Gather around the open-fire hearth to hear about festive dishes, harvest-time preserves, and family recipes passed between generations. The shared meal showcases the hospitality and seasonal produce that define village cuisine.

Set out on a 2–3 hour hike to ancient stone-built ruins tucked into the folds of the Nurata range. Footpaths lead past dry-stone walls and grazing meadows to windswept lookouts.

Learn how highland settlements used local schist and spring water to endure harsh seasons. The rocky ridgelines and broad valleys frame a landscape of resilience, with your guide interpreting history etched into the terrain.

Arrive at a yurt camp in the Kyzylkum Desert and take a gentle desert nature walk among hardy shrubs and dune crests. As the light softens, sip tea and watch the sky drain from amber to indigo.

After dinner, gather by the fire for a performance from a folk musician with a dombra. Songs and stories evoke nomadic lifeways, carried on the night air under a sweep of desert stars.

Drive to Aydarkul lake, a vast ribbon of water edging the Kyzylkum sands. Cool off with a swim from a sandy beach, or stroll the dune-fringed shore where reeds rustle and waterbirds skim the surface.

Your guide outlines how this reservoir transformed local ecology and livelihoods. The desert silence, broken only by wind and waves, offers a restorative pause in an elemental landscape.

Stand on the blighted shore where the Aral Sea once lapped and walk among rusted trawlers in the haunting ship cemetery. Sand drifts around propped hulls that once launched daily for sturgeon and caviar.

Visit the Moynaq Museum to learn how Soviet irrigation for cotton diverted rivers and collapsed a maritime economy. Photographs, nets, and charts trace a community’s fate amid one of the 20th century’s starkest environmental crises.

Explore the windswept Mizdakhan necropolis, a layered sacred site with mausoleums and legends spanning centuries near the Amu Darya plains. Stonework and domes rise from ochre earth, framed by the Khorezmian steppe.

Continue to the Chilpik dakhma, a reconstructed Zoroastrian tower of silence used for ancient funerary rites. Your guide links beliefs, trade routes, and shifting empires that shaped these enduring ritual landscapes.

Walk the ramparts of Ayaz-Kala fortress, a chain of hilltop citadels guarding the Khorezm oasis from the 2nd–4th centuries CE. Mud-brick walls command views across tawny ridges and scrubland.

As the light fades, savor a desert yurt dinner near the site. Conversation, starlight, and the scent of spiced dishes accompany stories of caravan defenses and frontier life along the Oxus horizons.

Enter UNESCO-listed Ichan Kala, the walled inner city of Khiva, to see the teal-glazed Kalta Minor, the khans’ Kunya Ark Fortress, and the forest of pillars in the Juma Mosque. Narrow alleys reveal tilework, carved doors, and sunlit courtyards.

Climb viewpoints near the Islam Khoja minaret, then meet artisans weaving carpets, embroidering suzani, and turning wood in traditional workshops. Palaces at Tash Khauli and Allakuli Khan complete a vivid portrait of a Silk Road khanate.

Walk Bukhara’s lanes to the royal Ark Fortress, seat of emirs and envoy intrigue, and gaze up at the 12th-century Kalyan Minaret, a baked-brick marvel spared by Genghis Khan. Trade domes shelter spice sellers, coppersmiths, and silk merchants.

Pause by the mulberry-shaded Lyab-i-Hauz pool, heart of the old city’s social life. Your guide connects Sufi heritage, madrassa learning, and the hum of domed bazaars that still anchor urban rhythms.

Admire the 10th-century Ismail Samani Mausoleum, renowned for its intricate brickwork that shifts with the light. Geometry, proportion, and baked-clay artistry create a serene, near-perfect cube.

Continue to Char Minar, a charming gateway with four decorative towers marking a former madrassa. These sites trace Bukhara’s evolution from early Islamic architecture to later decorative flourishes and neighborhood devotion.

Visit Sitorai-Mokhi-Khosa, the late-imperial retreat of the Emir of Bukhara. European salons meet Bukharan craftsmanship in lacquered ceilings, mirror-clad halls, and rose-scented gardens.

Costumes, porcelain, and courtly portraits illuminate changing tastes at the turn of the 20th century. The palace’s blend of East and West offers a final flourish to Bukhara’s architectural narrative.

Ride the cable car ascent at the Amirsay resort to a panorama over the Tien Shan foothills. Alpine meadows and craggy ridges tumble toward the turquoise Charvak reservoir and its dam.

Photograph snow-tipped peaks and serrated horizons while your guide outlines seasonal life in the Ugam-Chatkal National Park. Crisp mountain air and wide horizons offer a refreshing finale to your journey.

Explore the Sun heliocomplex near Parkent, a Soviet-era solar furnace where a giant mirror field concentrates sunlight to extreme temperatures for materials research.

Engineers recount the site’s Cold War origins and current experiments, while you examine the towering concentrator and control rooms. It’s an arresting blend of science, industry, and bold design in the foothills east of Tashkent.

Join a guided city tour of Uzbekistan’s capital to see Independence Square, tree-lined avenues, and cooling fountains before delving into the Old City’s madrassas and the bustling Chorsu Bazaar. Stroll broad, leafy boulevards and admire metro stations clad in marble and mosaics.

Hear how the city was rebuilt in Soviet style after the 1966 earthquake, shaping today’s mix of modernism and tradition. Your guide introduces the capital’s diverse faiths, markets, and museums, setting the scene for the Silk Road journey ahead.

Share a convivial table at a local restaurant and meet your tour leader over classic Uzbek flavors: steaming plov, fire-grilled shashlik, fragrant lagman, and warm rounds of non bread. Toast the adventure with green tea or a glass of local wine.

Your host explains dining customs and the role of the dastarkhan communal spread. It’s a relaxed evening to swap first impressions and enjoy the generous, spice-laced cuisine that fuels life along the Silk Road.