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Places in this article: Samarkand · Tashkent · Bukhara
Uzbekistan in 3 days: Tashkent and Samarkand by fast train
Three days in Uzbekistan seems too short for a real trip. But Tashkent and Samarkand are about 2 h 10 min apart on the Uzbekistan's high-speed train: Tashkent to Samarkand in about 2 hours 10 minutes, Tashkent to Bukhara in about 4 hours. Tickets are tied to your passport. Read more → high-speed train, and that changes the sums. You can sleep one night in each city, see the Did you know? The Registan's sun-carrying lion went on a banknote The Sher-Dor Madrasah (1619–1636) is named for the big cats with the sun on their backs on its portal. The image appeared on the reverse of Uzbekistan's 200-som note of 1997. Read more → under its evening lights and again in the morning sun, and still be back in Tashkent for a late flight home.
We are a tour operator in Tashkent. This is how we plan Uzbekistan in 3 days for guests with a long weekend, a stopover or a few free days after a conference.
The three days at a glance
| Day | Where | How the day goes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tashkent | Arrival; the old city around ,The religious heart of old Tashkent: madrasahs, a Friday mosque and mausoleums. Right next to it stands the new Center of Islamic Civilization, opened in 2026. Read more → ,Did you know? Tashkent’s Chorsu dome is younger than the city’s metro Trade at the old crossroads is centuries old, but the domed building opened only in 1990, thirteen years after the metro. Architects Vladimir Azimov and Sabir Adylov gave it a main dome of 86 m ringed by seven smaller ones. Read more → the Did you know? A metro designed to ride out a magnitude-9 earthquake The three original lines of the Tashkent Metro were built to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 9.0, and the tunnels lie unusually shallow, only 8–25 m below the street. Read more → |
| 2 | Tashkent → Samarkand | The morning Afrosiyob; ,Did you know? Timur's tombstone went to Persia and came back The dark-green jade slab on Timur's grave in Gur-e-Amir was carried off by Nader Shah in 1740. It broke, and on his advisers' urging he sent it back to Samarkand. Read more → ,Did you know? Legend says the architect asked the queen for a kiss Legend says the architect of Bibi-Khanym would finish on time only for a kiss from Timur's wife, and Timur punished him. In fact the mosque was Timur's own project; his wife Saray Mulk Khanum built her madrasah across the road. Read more → ,Samarkand's main bazaar, right next to Bibi-Khanym: Samarkand bread, dried fruit, nuts and halva. Read more → ;Did you know? Why Shah-i-Zinda means 'the Living King' The necropolis grew around the shrine of Qutham ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. Legend says he did not die in battle but went down a deep well to a garden of paradise, where he lives on. Read more → the Registan lit up |
| 3 | Samarkand → Tashkent | The Registan at 8 a.m., the A village near Samarkand where paper is made by hand from mulberry bark, the old way, at a working mill on the stream. ;Did you know? Paper polished with stone, made to last 400 years At the Meros mill in Konigil, founded in 1996 to revive a craft that had died out, a water wheel beats mulberry bark into pulp, and each sheet is polished for hours with agate, shell or horn. It is made to last some 400 years. Read more → the evening train back |
This whole plan is our private tour Uzbekistan in 3 Days: Tashkent and Samarkand. A guide in your language, the car, the hotels and the train tickets are all included, and the price is quoted for your dates.
Why Tashkent and Samarkand, and not Bukhara
Bukhara is less than two hours further west on the same line, but the way back from Bukhara to Tashkent takes about four hours, and trains in that direction leave between about 15:00 and 18:30. In three days that means a second long afternoon on a train. Khiva is further still: the high-speed train from Tashkent takes about seven and a half hours.
So for three days we keep to the two cities closest to each other and give each of them proper time. With five days, Bukhara joins the plan, as in Uzbekistan in 5 days. With a week, there is time for Khiva too: see Uzbekistan in 7 days.
Day 1: Tashkent, more than an airport
Most visitors see Tashkent only between the plane and the train. We give it a day. In the morning, the old city: on the square of Hazrati Imam stand the Did you know? A mausoleum built for a khan who was buried in another city Barak Khan Madrasah was built in 1531–32. One of its two mausoleums was meant for Barak Khan himself, but he was buried in Samarkand, so the tomb is still called the Nameless Mausoleum. Its cell doors were inlaid with ivory. Read more → ,An Islamic college: student cells and classrooms around a courtyard behind a grand portal. In the old towns many now house museums and craft workshops. Read more → the Tillya Sheikh mosque and the Hazrati Imam mosque, around the tomb of ,Did you know? Tashkent's patron saint was nicknamed “the locksmith” Abu Bakr Kaffal Shashi, born in Shash, old Tashkent, in 903–904 and died in 976, was a jurist and poet and the son of a locksmith: “kaffal” means locksmith. His mausoleum at Hazrati Imam dates from 1541–1542. Read more → the scholar Tashkent honours as its patron. Next to them is the Center of Islamic Civilization, which opened in March 2026, with its halls under a 65-metre dome.
Lunch is .Rice cooked in a kazan with carrots, onions and meat: the dish of every Uzbek celebration. Each region cooks it its own way. Then Chorsu bazaar, under a blue dome built in 1990: spices, dried apricots, nuts and round bread, with the Did you know? A madrasah that was an inn, a fort and a museum Tashkent's Kukeldash Madrasah, built around 1570, became a caravanserai in the 18th century, later a fortress and then a museum, before returning to teaching in the 1990s. Read more → at the edge of the market. From Tashkent's old bazaar under a big blue-green dome, not far from Hazrati Imam. Bring cash in so'm. Read more → station, ride the blue Did you know? Central Asia’s first metro: free to photograph since 2018 Tashkent’s metro opened on 6 November 1977 with nine stations, the first in Central Asia. Since 1 June 2018 it can be photographed freely, richly decorated station halls included. Read more → of the metro to Alisher Navoi, with its turquoise ceramic reliefs, and on to .Did you know? A metro station where Ulugh Beg meets Gagarin Kosmonavtlar station, opened in 1984, has ceramic medallions of Ulugh Beg, Galileo, Icarus, Gagarin and Tereshkova, and glass stars in the ceiling that hint at the Milky Way. Read more → Photography in the metro has been allowed since 2018, so bring the camera.
If your flight lands in the evening, you lose little. The Center of Islamic Civilization is open until 22:00, and its facade is lit up after dark. We can also arrange an evening walk in Tashkent.
Day 2: Samarkand by the morning train
The first Afrosiyob trains leave Tashkent Central, which locals call the North station, soon after six in the morning. The 06:33 is in Samarkand at 08:46. Samarkand station is more than 6 km from the Registan, so on our tours the driver meets you on the platform.
Start with Gur-e-Amir, the mausoleum completed in 1404 where Amir Timur (Tamerlane, 1336–1405), founder of the Timurid empire, which had its capital in Samarkand. Born near Shahrisabz. Read more → lies. From the Registan a pedestrian street runs about 700 m to the ,Did you know? 95 elephants hauled stone for Timur's great mosque Bibi-Khanym, begun in 1399 after Timur took Delhi, was the largest mosque of his empire. Some 200 stonecutters worked on site and 95 elephants brought from India hauled the loads; the courtyard was meant to hold 10,000 people. Read more → and Siab bazaar starts right beside it: dried fruit, nuts, Did you know? Legend: Samarkand bread can't be baked anywhere else Legend says a Bukhara ruler brought Samarkand's best baker to his court with his oven, flour and water, yet the bread came out different. The missing ingredient, the baker said, was the air of Samarkand. The round loaves keep for a long time. Read more → and lunch nearby. In the afternoon, Shah-i-Zinda, a lane of tiled mausoleums built over eight centuries. In summer we turn the day around and go there first, before the heat. In the evening, the Registan under its lights; we arrange evening visits to the Registan.
Book the train tickets early. They go on sale 60 days before departure, they are issued to your passport, and Afrosiyob seats sell out. We buy both legs as soon as your dates are fixed, or just a train ticket from Tashkent if that is all you need. All the options for this leg are in Tashkent to Samarkand.
Day 3: the Registan at opening time and the train back
Be on the Registan when it opens at 8 a.m. The low sun falls on the ,Did you know? Engineers pulled a leaning minaret back upright By 1920 a minaret of the Ulugh Beg Madrasah on the Registan was tilting. In 1932 engineer Vladimir Shukhov straightened it; the second minaret was set upright in 1965. Read more → built in 1417–1420, where astronomy was taught, and the square is quiet. It is the side of the Registan you did not see in the evening light.
Then drive about 13 km to the village of Konigil, where the Meros workshop makes paper from mulberry bark the old way, with a water wheel turning on the stream. The afternoon is yours. The last fast trains leave Samarkand for Tashkent between about 7 and 8 p.m. and take about 2 h 10 min, so book the flight home for late on day 3 or the next morning. If you only need the way back, we sell a train ticket from Samarkand.
Flying into or out of Samarkand instead? Then we turn the plan around and start there. More walking routes for the city are in Samarkand in 1, 2 or 3 days.
When three days work best
The plan works all year. March to May and September to November are the most comfortable months for two full days on foot. In summer we walk in the morning and the evening and keep the middle of the day for lunch and rest. In December the sun sets before five, so the Registan is lit up before dinner. Only the last days of December are harder: trains and hotels fill up around New Year, so book early for those dates.
In short
- In 3 days, see Tashkent and Samarkand; Bukhara and Khiva need five days or a week.
- The Afrosiyob takes about 2 h 10 min; tickets go on sale 60 days ahead, are issued to your passport and sell out.
- See the Registan twice: lit up in the evening and at 8 a.m., when it opens.
- Book the flight home for late on day 3 or the next morning.
- We arrange the whole trip: Uzbekistan in 3 Days: Tashkent and Samarkand, price on request.
