How should I take in Uzbekistan?

Q I have five days in Uzbekistan later this year. How should I divide my time to make the most of the country in such short order?

Trevor C

A The first good “red tape” news of the year was that Uzbekistan is abolishing the need for visas for stays of up to 30 days for tourists from dozens of countries, including the UK, from 1 February 2019.

I assume that you are travelling in and out of the capital, Tashkent. Spend one day here. It is a fascinating city – mostly pure USSR, with broad boulevards and imposing 20th-century buildings – but with some more venerable history. The History Museum is suffocatingly Soviet, but the Chorsu Bazaar is colourful and lively.

Getting around the city is easy, with loads of cheap and reliable taxis.

On the morning of your second day, take a cab to the city’s impressive railway station, and board the Afrosiyob train to Samarkand. Uzbekistan has the only high-speed railway in central Asia, and the Spanish-built rolling stock is comfortable, reliable and cheap – costing around £20 for the two-hour ride to Samarkand.

Check in for one night here; you will actually be here for exactly 24 hours, because you will board the train the next day for the onward journey to Bukhara.

Explore the Registan at the heart of Samarkand, the spectacular convergence of mosques, palaces and minarets. Then wander across to the Soviet side of the city, and marvel that ancient Samarkand survived communism in much better condition than newer structures.

Samarkand has plenty of good places to dine, and if you are there in summer you can eat al fresco on excellent, fresh and spicy fare.

Bukhara, a further two hours on, is smaller and more intensely Islamic, and definitely worth another 24 hours of your time.

For your final day, you have a choice. You could return to Tashkent and make a side trip to the Fergana Valley, which is a good way to see a slice of rural life in Uzbekistan. But I recommend that instead you pay approximately £50 (ideally shared between several travellers) for the four-hour road journey, along Uzbekistan’s best road, to Khiva – a miraculous, medieval walled city comprising mud huts, minarets and monuments. Khiva is simply one of the most astonishing places on earth, and yet has great places to stay and eat. There is also an international airport only half an hour away in the city of Urgench. From here you can fly back on one of the twice-daily departures to Tashkent in 80 minutes, for a fare of around £40, and continue with your travel plans.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to [email protected] or tweet @simoncalder