Travel to Uzbekistan: Silk Road itinerary, seasons and tips

Tamerlane's capital in the late 14th century, Samarkand deserves three full days. The madrasas of the Registan, the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum and Bibi-Khanym mosque can all be visited on foot, ideally early in the morning or late in the afternoon for the light. The Afrosiyob train reaches it from Tashkent in just over two hours. The city is also a gateway to neighbouring Tajikistan, whose border lies an hour's drive away towards Penjikent. Half a day is enough for the ancient Afrasiab site and Ulugh Beg's observatory.

More intimate than Samarkand, Bukhara has kept a coherent historic centre of mosques, madrasas and domed trading halls around the Lyab-i-Hauz pool. Two or three nights let you wander between the Po-i-Kalon ensemble, the Ark citadel and the Samanid mausoleum, one of the oldest Islamic monuments in Central Asia. The high-speed train links it to Samarkand in under two hours. Stay in a guesthouse in the old town: in the evening, once the tour groups have left, the lanes recover a rare calm.

Enclosed by its mud-brick walls, the inner town of Itchan Kala was the first Uzbek site inscribed by UNESCO, in 1990. It can be covered in a day, but a night inside lets you see it empty at dawn and at sunset from the ramparts. Khiva is about 450 kilometres from Bukhara: allow six to seven hours by road across the Kyzylkum desert, or take the train to Khiva station. Around it, the ancient Khorezm fortresses such as Ayaz-Kala make a one-day excursion.

Largely rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, Tashkent is the country's capital and main air gateway. One or two days are enough for Chorsu bazaar, the Khast-Imam religious complex, which holds an early Quran from the 7th century, and the decorated metro stations. It is also the base for reaching neighbouring Kazakhstan, whose border is about twenty kilometres from the centre, or the Chimgan mountains, around two hours' drive away, for a day of summer hiking.

Separated from Tashkent by the Kamchik pass, the fertile Fergana valley is about five hours away by road or reachable by train. People come for living crafts: the ikat silk workshops of Margilan, the blue ceramics of Rishton and the great bazaar of Kokand, former capital of a khanate. Three days allow a full loop. To the east the valley opens onto Kyrgyzstan, whose city of Osh lies a few kilometres from the Dostlik border crossing.

West of Khiva, the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan has Nukus as its capital, where the Savitsky Museum holds a major collection of Soviet avant-garde art that was banned at the time. In Moynaq, about three hours' drive away, the hulks of stranded boats bear witness to the drying of the Aral Sea, whose shoreline now lies dozens of kilometres further out. Reaching the water requires a two-day 4x4 expedition with a night in a yurt. A single day from Nukus is enough for Moynaq and its ship graveyard.

Tamerlane's birthplace, Shakhrisabz is about two hours' drive from Samarkand over the Takhtakaracha pass and is visited in a day: the monumental ruins of the Ak-Saray palace, mosques and mausoleums. Further south, Termez preserves Buddhist remains from the first centuries AD. The French Foreign Ministry, however, advises against the border strip with Afghanistan, which runs along this region: check before travelling there and stick to sites in the town itself rather than areas close to the Amu Darya.