Travel in city Silk Road

Uzbekistan is the Central Asian destination that you’ve been dreaming about. Magnificent blue-domed mosques, towering minarets, atmospheric Silk Road cities and ancient bazaars are coupled with the region’s best accommodation, easiest transportation and great value for money. It’s the most visited of the Central Asian republics and with good reason.

In China, antiquity and heritage meet 21st-century innovation and lighting-fast development.

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As we climbed the slope toward one of the world’s most momentous archaeological sites in a gusty December drizzle, a futuristic shape loomed into view. It was the swooping white canopy erected over the main excavation at Gobekli Tepe, a group of Neolithic structures up to 11,400 years old in southeastern Turkey. Their unearthing in the mid-1990s caused a reconsideration of the standard timeline of human civilization. From under the space-age canopy, my partner, Anya, and I stared down into the monumental Stone Age panorama before us, like awed and slightly spooked time travelers.

If you are contemplating traveling the Silk Road with kids, Uzbekistan should be the first destination on your list.

For at least two millennia, Uzbekistan has been the setting for some of Asia’s most important road trips, following the network of Silk Roads that once formed the major highway between east and west.

While the Chinese stretch of the Silk Road is world famous, the central Asian section is far less travelled but has no less to see. Kiki Deere describes travelling the Silk Road in Uzbekistan, from post-Soviet Tashkent, through the beautiful blue-tiled city of Samarkand, to unspoilt Bukhara.

Paula Hotti explains how a train journey through Uzbekistan offers a wonderful way to discover the ancient Silk Road.