Uzbekistan by Rail with Kazakhstan: Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Almaty, 7 Nights

You are met at Tashkent airport and taken to your hotel, with flights usually landing in the afternoon. In the early evening your guide takes you on a short panoramic drive through the centre, past the wide avenues, fountains and Soviet-era squares of the capital, so you get your bearings. Dinner is early, as tomorrow’s train leaves soon after dawn.

The early high-speed train reaches Samarkand in a little over two hours. With your guide you stand in the Registan between its three madrasas, see Timur’s tomb at Gur-e-Amir, the huge Bibi-Khanym mosque, the blue-tiled mausoleums of Shah-i-Zinda, Ulugbek’s observatory and the Siyob bazaar. In the evening the train carries you on to Bukhara, arriving late.

A full day in Bukhara on foot. From the mulberry-shaded Lyabi-Hauz pool you pass the sunken Magoki Attori mosque and the facing madrasas of Ulugbek and Abdulaziz Khan to the Kalyan minaret, mosque and Mir-i-Arab madrasa. Then the wooden pillars of Bolo Hauz and the emir’s summer palace. The evening train back to Tashkent takes about four hours, so you arrive late.

After two big days of monuments, a day in the mountains. The road leaves Tashkent for the western Tian Shan and climbs to Chimgan, where a chairlift rises up the slope for long views over the ranges. You stop above the Charvak reservoir, bright turquoise against bare hills, before the drive back to the city in the afternoon.

A transfer to Tashkent airport for the short flight north-east to Almaty, about an hour and a half. The flight is not part of the land package; we book it alongside so the times fit your transfers. A Kazakh driver meets you in Almaty. Check in and take the evening easy, perhaps with a walk along the pedestrian Arbat.

Up the gorge above Almaty to Medeu, the high open-air skating rink, and on to the gondola for Shymbulak. The lifts rise in stages to the top station, surrounded by glaciers and peaks, where the air is thin and cool even in summer. Take your time at the top; there are cafés and short paths for views back over the valley.

A guided day through the city: the First President’s Park, Republic Square, the Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Academy of Sciences, Abay Square and the Palace of the Republic. In Panfilov Park stands Zenkov Cathedral, built entirely of wood in 1907. In the late afternoon the cable car climbs Kok Tobe hill for the view of the city against the mountains.

Many flights from Almaty leave in the early morning, so the transfer may be before dawn, with a packed breakfast from the hotel. If your flight leaves later, the morning is free for the Green Bazaar, a good place for dried fruit, nuts and Kazakh sweets. Your driver takes you to the airport in time for check-in.