Six Days, Seven Plovs

Arrival in Tashkent and a meeting at the airport. In the afternoon your guide takes you through Chorsu Bazaar to taste your way along the rows of bread, dried fruit, cheese and spices, followed by a welcome dinner of Uzbek classics.

1. Meeting at Tashkent airport and transfer to the hotel

   • Check-in from 14:00

2. 15:30Chorsu Bazaar food walk (2 hours)

   • Tandir bread and samsa straight from the oven
   • Dried apricots, raisins, almonds and pistachios
   • Kurt, the salty dried yoghurt balls
   • The spice and pickle rows under the great dome
   • Kukeldash Madrasah next door

3. 19:00Welcome dinner

   • Shurpa, lagman, shashlik and a first taste of plov

A morning high-speed train to Samarkand and the city's great monuments, then an afternoon with a baker learning the round Samarkand non that Uzbeks carry home in their suitcases.

1. 06:45Transfer to Tashkent North (Tashkent Central) station

2. 07:30Afrosiyob train to Samarkand (about 2 h 15 min, arrival 09:43)

   • Train times change by season; we confirm them when you book

3. 10:00Meeting with the guide at the station; sightseeing (2.5 hours)

   • Registan Square and its three madrasahs
   • Gur-Emir, the mausoleum of Amir Timur
   • Luggage goes ahead to the hotel with the driver

4. 13:00Lunch: Samarkand manti and salads

5. 14:00Check-in at the hotel

6. 15:00Bread workshop with a tandir baker (2 hours)

   • Kneading, stamping the pattern with a chekich, baking on the oven wall, and tea with the bread still warm

7. Evening free

   • Optional: the Registan lit up at night

You shop at Siab Bazaar with your cook for the ingredients of plov, then cook it together in a courtyard kitchen and eat it for lunch. The afternoon brings Shah-i-Zinda and a tasting at one of the oldest wineries in Central Asia.

1. 09:00Siab Bazaar with your cook (1 hour)

   • Rice, yellow carrots, cumin, barberries and meat chosen for the plov
   • Dried fruit and nut tasting
   • The halva and sweets rows
   • Siab Bazaar is closed on Mondays; on a Monday we shop at another market

2. 10:30Plov cooking class in a courtyard kitchen (2.5 hours)

   • The kazan over an open fire, the order of meat, onions, carrots and rice, and lunch of the plov you cooked

3. 14:30Rest at the hotel

4. 16:00Shah-i-Zinda necropolis (1 hour)

   • The avenue of blue-tiled mausoleums

5. 17:30Wine tasting at a historic Samarkand winery (1 hour)

   • Dry and dessert wines and brandies, with dried fruit

A day on the road west by private car, about four and a half hours of driving in total. You stop at the Rabat-i-Malik caravanserai, eat the famous kebab of Gijduvan, see its potters at work and reach Bukhara in time for an evening stroll.

1. 08:30Drive to the Rabat-i-Malik caravanserai near Navoi (about 2.5 hours)

2. 11:00Rabat-i-Malik caravanserai and its sardoba water cistern (30 min)

3. 11:30Drive on to Gijduvan (about 1 hour)

4. 12:30Lunch of Gijduvan kebab

   • Minced lamb on skewers over charcoal, with onions, tomatoes and tandir bread

5. 13:45Ceramics workshop in Gijduvan (1 hour)

6. 15:00Drive to Bukhara (about 50 min) and check-in

7. 18:00Evening walk around Lyabi-Hauz

A walking day through old Bukhara with food in mind: spices, bread and green tea between the trading domes and the Kalyan Minaret. In the afternoon you make Bukhara sweets with a local master, and in the evening a family welcomes you to dinner at home.

1. 09:00Walking tour of the old town (3.5 hours)

   • Magoki-Attori Mosque and the trading domes
   • Poi-Kalyan: Kalyan Minaret, Kalyan Mosque and Mir-i-Arab Madrasah
   • The Ark Fortress
   • A stop at a bakery and a tea house on the way
   • The museums inside the Ark are reported to close on Wednesdays; on that day the Bolo-Hauz Mosque and the Samanid Mausoleum take its place

2. 12:30Lunch break (at own expense)

3. 15:00Bukhara sweets workshop (1.5 hours)

   • Halva and other sweets made the old way, served with green tea

4. 19:00Home-hosted dinner with a Bukhara family

   • A full dastarkhan: salads, soup, a main course, fruit and sweets

A free morning in Bukhara, then the afternoon Afrosiyob train back to Tashkent, arriving in the evening for a late flight home. If you fly out of Bukhara instead, we arrange the airport transfer.

1. Free morning; check-out by 12:00

   • Luggage can wait at the hotel

2. 14:15Transfer to Bukhara-1 station in Kagan (25 min)

3. 15:09Afrosiyob train to Tashkent (about 4 h 10 min)

   • Train times change by season; we confirm them when you book

4. 19:17Arrival at Tashkent North and transfer to the airport

   • Book an onward flight leaving after about 22:30, or add a night in Tashkent