The legendary Silk Road in Uzbekistan

Complejo Hazrati Imam

It holds the seventh-century Uthman Quran, considered the oldest in the world. It sits in a case and cannot be photographed.

Bazar Chorsu

Under a giant turquoise dome, it is the market that has been working on that spot since Silk Road times.

Metro de Taskent

Every station is different, with marble, mosaics and chandeliers. Photographing it was banned until 2018 because it doubled as an air-raid shelter.

Plaza Amir Timur

The centre of the modern city, with the statue of Tamerlane, the conqueror who made Samarkand a capital.

Registán

Three madrasas around one square, the image that stands for the whole of Central Asia. Worth seeing by day and again under the night lighting.

Gur-e-Amir

Tamerlane's tomb, under a fluted dome. When it was opened in 1941 a warning inscription came to light; two days later Germany invaded the USSR.

Shah-i-Zinda

A street of mausoleums climbing the hill, each with different tilework. It is the finest ceramic ensemble in the country.

Bibi-Khanym

The mosque Tamerlane wanted larger than any other. It began collapsing almost as soon as it was finished, from sheer ambition.

Observatorio de Ulugh Beg

The 1420 sextant with which a grandson of Tamerlane measured the year to within less than a minute.

Poi Kalyan

The 47-metre minaret Genghis Khan spared when he razed the city. It was called “the tower of death”: the condemned were thrown from the top.

Ark de Bujará

The emirs' fortress-city, inhabited since the fifth century. Inside there was a mosque, a prison, a harem and a mint.

Lyab-i Hauz

The pool ringed with mulberry trees where life happens. It dates from 1620 and was one of the few water tanks left after the epidemics.

Chor Minor

Four small towers with blue domes, each one different, hidden down a residential lane. You have to go looking for it.

Itchan Kala

The entire walled town is a World Heritage site: you go in through one gate and do not leave the eighteenth century until the gate at the other end.

Kalta Minor

The fat, truncated minaret clad in glazed tile. It was meant to be the tallest in the Islamic world and the khan died before it was finished.

Palacio Tosh-Hovli

The khan's stone palace, with 163 rooms and the best-preserved tiled courtyards in Khiva.

Minarete Islam Khoja

Khiva's tallest, 57 metres, with 118 dark and very narrow steps up to the view over the whole walled town.