Places in this article: Samarkand · Bukhara · Tashkent · Khiva
Uzbekistan in 5 days: Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara by fast train
Five days is enough for Uzbekistan if you let one railway line do the work. 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 → takes about 2 h 10 min from Tashkent to Samarkand and under two hours on to Bukhara, and it runs several times a day, every day. So on this route, unlike our longer ones, the weekday you land on does not matter at all. Here is how we plan Uzbekistan in 5 days for our guests: two nights in Samarkand, two in Bukhara, and one honest list of what stays for next time.
The five days at a glance
Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara lie on one line from east to west, so the route never doubles back until the last train home.
| Day | Where | How the day goes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tashkent → Samarkand | Arrival; the Afrosiyob, about 2 h 10 min; 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 → in the evening |
| 2 | Samarkand | A full day: ,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 → |
| 3 | Samarkand → Bukhara | The Registan at opening time, then the Afrosiyob, under 2 hours; Did you know? Bukhara's ponds were once its water supply Pools like Lyabi-Hauz, dug around 1620 and 46 × 36 m, were the city's main source of water. Most were filled in during the 1920s–30s because they spread disease; Lyabi-Hauz survived. Read more → in the evening |
| 4 | Bukhara | A full day: ,The fortress-residence of the rulers of Bukhara on a high artificial hill: the oldest structure in the city. Read more → the ,Did you know? Buried in mud, this tomb escaped Genghis Khan The 10th-century Samanid Mausoleum, one of the oldest monuments of Islamic Central Asia, was covered by flood mud and sand before the Mongols came in 1220. Hidden for centuries, its brick lacework survived intact. Read more → the ,Did you know? Under Bukhara's domes merchants changed money and gold Four 16th-century trading domes still stand over old crossroads. Toki Sarrafon was the money changers' dome, where merchants from India and China swapped coins; Toki Zargaron held jewellers' workshops, Toki Telpak Furushon sold caps. Read more → Did you know? Legend: the minaret's foundation was laid with camel milk Legend says master Bako laid the foundations of the Kalyan minaret with ganch plaster mixed with camel milk, then vanished for two years to let them harden, and only then built the tower. Locals still show a grave they say is his. Read more → at sunset |
| 5 | Bukhara → Tashkent | The morning in Bukhara, an afternoon train, about 4 hours; the flight home |
Why two nights each? Samarkand and Bukhara are where most of the sights are, and with two nights you see each city in the morning and in the evening, which is when they look their best. If you have a week or more, the same logic grows into Uzbekistan in 7 days with Khiva, 10 days at an easy pace and 14 days with the Fergana Valley.
Trains: the one thing to book first
The Afrosiyob is a Talgo high-speed train that reaches 250 km/h. It leaves from Tashkent Central, which locals call the North station. The earliest trains go soon after six in the morning: the 06:33 is in Samarkand at 08:46. If you land late in the evening, sleep in Tashkent and take that one; the plan loses nothing but an evening.
Tickets go on sale 60 days before departure on eticket.uzrailpass.uz, and they are issued to your passport. Afrosiyob seats sell out, so we buy all three legs as soon as your dates are fixed. Two details catch people out. The station in Samarkand is more than 6 km from the Registan, and Bukhara’s station is not in Bukhara at all but in Kagan, about 12 km away, so plan a taxi or a transfer at both ends.
On the way back, trains from Bukhara towards Tashkent leave between about 15:00 and 18:30, and the ride takes about four hours. That is why we book the flight home for late on day 5 or the next morning, never with a tight connection. We can book your train ticket from Bukhara. How the classes differ is in our guide to trains in Uzbekistan, and the first leg in detail is in Tashkent to Samarkand.
Samarkand: days 1 to 3
On day 1 you arrive by the afternoon and go straight to the Registan. After dark the square is lit up, and we arrange evening visits to the Registan, so the first thing you see of Samarkand is its main square.
Day 2 is a day on foot. Gur-e-Amir, Amir Timur (Tamerlane, 1336–1405), founder of the Timurid empire, which had its capital in Samarkand. Born near Shahrisabz.’s mausoleum completed in 1404, is about a kilometre from the Registan. From the square 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: this is where we stop for lunch. Shah-i-Zinda is about 800 m further, a lane of tiled mausoleums built over eight centuries. In summer we turn the day around and go there first, before the heat. It is a place of pilgrimage, so cover shoulders and knees.
On day 3 be back at the Registan when it opens at 8 a.m. The low morning 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 → the facade you did not see in the evening light. Then take the train to Bukhara. Our plan for Samarkand in 1, 2 or 3 days has the walking order, and the Registan and Shah-i-Zinda have their own guides.
Bukhara: days 3 to 5
Morning trains from Samarkand reach Bukhara around noon, so day 3 still has a long afternoon. Bukhara’s old town can be crossed on foot in half an hour: from Lyabi-Hauz to the Did you know? Diggers went 13 m down and never found its base The Kalyan Minaret of 1127 rises about 46 m, and an excavation reached 13 m without finding the bottom of its foundations. Genghis Khan reportedly ordered it spared. Read more → is about 500 m. Walk under the trading domes and finish the day with green tea by the pond at Lyabi-Hauz.
Day 4 follows the light. The Ark at opening time, before the heat settles on its open courtyards; the Did you know? The famous columns of Bolo-Hauz are barely a century old The Bolo-Hauz mosque opposite the Ark was completed in 1712, but its best-known feature, the tall, slender carved columns along the front of the iwan, was added only in 1917, together with the small minaret of 1916–1917. Read more → mosque across the square; then the Samanid Mausoleum in the park, a 10th-century cube of patterned brick. The trading domes are the place for the hot middle of the day, and Rice cooked in a kazan with carrots, onions and meat: the dish of every Uzbek celebration. Each region cooks it its own way. is the lunch. In the late afternoon go to Poi Kalyan: the minaret of 1127 rises about 46 m, and the low sun turns its brick gold.
Day 5 gives you a morning: the four towers of Did you know? Legend: four towers for four world religions? Chor Minor, a gatehouse of 1807, has four towers, each decorated differently. Guides say they stand for four world religions and look for a cross, a fish and a prayer wheel in the decor; others say four dynasties. All are interpretations. Read more → and the quiet lanes around it, or ,Did you know? Legend: the emir's palace site was chosen with meat Legend says that when Emir Nasrullah wanted a summer palace in the mid-19th century, sheep carcasses were hung in several places around Bukhara, and the spot where the meat spoiled last was chosen. Sitorai Mohi-Hosa there today dates from 1912–1918. Read more → the last emir’s summer palace, about 5 km north by car. Then the station in Kagan. More in Bukhara in 1, 2 or 3 days, the Ark and Poi Kalyan.
A version with Khiva: fly in, take the train out
Khiva is the far end of the line, beyond the The Kyzylkum, or Red Sands: the desert between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers that the road and the railway cross on the way to Khiva. Desert. In five days it fits only if you fly there first. ,Did you know? People still live inside Khiva's museum city Itchan Kala packs more than 50 historic monuments and about 250 old houses inside clay walls 8–10 m high and 5–6 m thick, and families still live and work in its lanes. Read more → its walled inner town, was the first site in Uzbekistan on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in 1990, and we never give it less than a full day.
| Day | Where | How the day goes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tashkent → Urgench → Khiva | Flight, about 1 h 20 min to 1 h 30 min, then 30 km by road; the evening in Khiva |
| 2 | Khiva | A full day in Itchan Kala |
| 3 | Khiva → Bukhara | High-speed train at 07:15 or 07:20, in Bukhara before 11:00 |
| 4 | Bukhara → Samarkand | Bukhara in the morning, the Afrosiyob, under 2 hours; the Registan in the evening |
| 5 | Samarkand → Tashkent | Samarkand in the morning, the Afrosiyob, about 2 h 10 min; the flight home |
This version has one weekday rule. The fast train leaves Khiva every day except Monday, so day 3 must not be a Monday: do not land on a Saturday. The price is one night each in Bukhara and Samarkand instead of two. For the first day we meet you at Urgench airport with a transfer to Khiva. What to see there is in Khiva in 1 or 2 days and Itchan Kala. One thing we do not recommend: Khiva as a day trip. The road there and back takes longer than the visit.
What five days leave out
Five days means choosing. This is what we leave for a second trip, and what it costs to put back:
- Tashkent. In this plan you see it from the station and the airport. A sixth day gives the capital a proper day: see Tashkent in 1 or 2 days.
- Khiva, unless you take the version above and give up a night in each of the other cities.
- Day trips: Shahrisabz from Samarkand, the Did you know? Ulugh Beg measured the year to within 25 seconds Working at his Samarkand observatory, Ulugh Beg put the tropical year at 365 days 5 h 49 min 15 s, about 25 seconds too long, closer than Copernicus a century later. Read more → and 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 Did you know? A village renamed in honour of a Sufi master Bahauddin Naqshband (1318–1389), who gave his name to one of the largest Sufi orders, was born and buried near Bukhara in Qasr-i Hinduvan. The village was later renamed Qasr-i Arifan in his honour; the tomb over his grave dates from 1544. Read more → complex near Bukhara. Each needs most of a day or a car.
- The Did you know? Legend says Fergana's 'heavenly horses' sweated blood Legend says the horses of Dayuan, as Chinese chronicles called Fergana, sweated blood, and around 102 BC Emperor Wu of Han sent an army to bring some home. The 'blood' was most likely a skin parasite that causes tiny bleeding spots. Read more → and the mountains: separate trips from Tashkent, with no time for them here.
What we would not cut is the second night in Samarkand or Bukhara. One night in each turns both cities into a race between trains.
When to go
For a city trip we prefer March to June and September to November, and our favourite months are March and November. In April afternoons are about 21 to 24 °C in Samarkand and Bukhara; in October about 22 to 23 °C, with cool nights. July is hard work: an average afternoon in Bukhara reaches 37 °C. In summer we see the sights early and late and keep the hottest hours for the hotel, and on our private five-day tour we swap the second day in Bukhara for a day at Amirsoy, in the mountains near Tashkent. In January afternoons are about 7 °C, the courtyards are quiet and the days are short. Month by month, see the weather in Uzbekistan and when to go.
Ready-made versions of this route
Our Samarkand and Bukhara in 5 Days is this route as a private tour: two nights in each city, the Afrosiyob between them, a private car for the stations and the airport, and a guide who speaks your language, included in the price. If you would rather join a group, there is our 4-day Samarkand group tour, and from Tashkent you can see the city in one long day with Samarkand in a Day. For other ideas, try the tour finder.
In short
- Five days: Samarkand two nights, Bukhara two nights, the Afrosiyob all the way; it runs every day, so any arrival day works.
- Tashkent–Samarkand is about 2 h 10 min, Samarkand–Bukhara under 2 hours, Bukhara–Tashkent about 4 hours.
- Buy the train tickets first: sales open 60 days ahead, and Bukhara’s station is in Kagan, 12 km from the old town.
- With Khiva: fly to Urgench on day 1, take the 07:15 or 07:20 train to Bukhara on day 3, and do not land on a Saturday.
- Best months: March to June and September to November; in summer, sights early and late.
