Uzbekistan tours from the Netherlands and Belgium: visa-free entry, flights from Amsterdam and Brussels and the best weeks of 2027

In the current timetable there are no nonstop flights from Amsterdam or Brussels to Tashkent. Three connections work well:

• Through Frankfurt. KLM and Lufthansa fly from Schiphol in 1 h 05 min to 1 h 15 min; Brussels Airlines and Lufthansa fly from Brussels in about an hour. From Frankfurt, Uzbekistan Airways, Qanot Sharq and Centrum Air fly nonstop to Tashkent in about 6 h 20 min.
• Through Paris. KLM and Air France fly from Schiphol to Charles de Gaulle in about 1 h 15 min. In the winter timetable 2026/27, Uzbekistan Airways leaves Paris on Tuesdays and Fridays at 18:50 and lands in Tashkent at 05:45.
• Through Istanbul. Turkish Airlines, KLM, Pegasus and AJet fly from Amsterdam; Turkish Airlines and AJet fly from Brussels, and Pegasus from Charleroi. The flight takes about 3 h 15 min to 3 h 35 min, and from Istanbul Turkish Airlines, Uzbekistan Airways, Centrum Air and Qanot Sharq fly on to Tashkent in 4 h 20 min to 4 h 50 min.

Days and times change between the winter and summer timetables, so check yours when you book. More routes are in our guide to flights to Uzbekistan.

Tashkent is on UTC+5 all year, with no summer time: four hours ahead of Amsterdam and Brussels in winter, three in summer. Many flights land late in the evening or at dawn, so we plan the first night around your arrival. We can also arrange fast-track passport control and a car to your hotel.

The tulip came to the Low Countries through two men from the old Southern Netherlands. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, born in Comines in Flanders in 1522, served the Habsburgs as ambassador to the Ottoman court and sent tulip bulbs to his friend Carolus Clusius, born in Arras in 1526. In October 1593 Clusius became a professor at Leiden and the first prefect of its new botanical garden, where he grew tulips.

Those first bulbs came from Constantinople, but the wild tulip has its home further east. In 2009 the Leiden botanist Ben Zonneveld measured the DNA of more than 400 wild tulips from Europe and Asia and concluded that most wild tulips are found in Central Asia, not in Turkey. The mountains around Tashkent are part of that heartland. Tulipa tschimganica takes its name from Chimgan, about 80 km from the city: the botanist Z. P. Botschantzeva described it in 1961 from bulbs she had collected below Greater Chimgan, and Zonneveld suggested it may be a wild hybrid of two other species. Tulipa butkovii grows only in the western part of the Chatkal Range, which includes Chimgan.

The wild tulips open in April and May, depending on the snow, so we plan a mountain day close to the date: a mountain hike with a guide and a picnic near Tashkent, or four days by 4x4 into the Western Tien Shan on the Jeep Expedition: High Tashkent. More in our guide to the mountains around Tashkent. Belgian scientists know these hills too: a laboratory at Ghent University dated the layers of Kulbulak, a Stone Age site near Angren in the same mountains, to between about 39,000 and 82,000 years ago.

You book the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers, timed to your arrival. Your guide speaks English, French or German, as you prefer, and that is included in the price. If you would like a guide who speaks Dutch, ask us when you book and we will check who is available for your dates.

The classic route, 8 or 11 days. Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva on our 8-day classic tour, or at an easier pace on the 11-day classic tour. How we lay out such trips is in Uzbekistan in 7 days and Uzbekistan in 10 days.

By train, 8 days. If you would rather leave the car behind, Uzbekistan by train takes the Afrosiyob to Samarkand and Bukhara, the new high-speed train to Khiva and a sleeper back to Tashkent.

Walking and wild flowers, 8 days. Our hiking tour of Chimgan, Nuratau and Samarkand starts with a day hike at Chimgan, then spends two nights with families in the Nuratau villages and one in a yurt camp by Lake Aydarkul, with Samarkand at both ends. It fits the May holidays well; see also hiking in Uzbekistan.

With children, 7 days. School holidays are when families travel, so we built a family tour of Uzbekistan with short transfers, paper-making at Konigil, the potters of Gijduvan and a rest every afternoon; tips are in Uzbekistan with kids. Not sure which route fits your dates? Try our tour finder.

Spring and autumn are the best seasons in the cities. In the Netherlands the dates below are the government’s recommended dates by region, and schools may differ; in Belgium each language community sets its own calendar, so check your school’s dates.

February. The Dutch spring break runs from 20 to 28 February 2027 in the north and centre and from 13 to 21 February in the south; the Flemish krokusvakantie is from 8 to 14 February. Tashkent afternoons average 9.5 °C in February and nights are around zero, so bring a warm coat, or come for the snow on our ski weekend in the mountains near Tashkent.

Easter, King’s Day and May. Easter Sunday falls on 28 March 2027. Flemish schools are off from 29 March to 11 April. The Dutch meivakantie runs from 24 April to 2 May in all regions, with King’s Day on Tuesday 27 April inside it, and some schools add the week from 1 to 9 May. Ascension, Thursday 6 May, and Whit Monday, 17 May, are public holidays in both countries. Tashkent averages 22 °C in the afternoon in April and 28 °C in May, and the wild tulips flower in the mountains. See April and May.

Summer. Dutch summer holidays start on 10 July in the north, 17 July in the centre and 24 July in the south; in Flanders they run from 1 July to 31 August, and 21 July is the Belgian national holiday. In July Tashkent averages 35.9 °C in the afternoon, so we plan the cities for mornings and evenings and add days in the mountains. See Uzbekistan in July.

Autumn. The Dutch autumn break of 2027 is from 16 to 24 October in the north and centre and from 23 to 31 October in the south; the Flemish one is from 1 to 7 November, with All Saints’ Day on Monday 1 November and Armistice Day on Thursday 11 November. October afternoons in Tashkent average 22 °C. See Uzbekistan in October and when to go.

Uzbek food is built around meat, mostly mutton, and around rice and bread. Plov, rice cooked in a cauldron with meat, carrots and onions, is a midday dish, and non, the round bread from the clay tandir oven, comes with every meal. From late spring to autumn the bazaars are full of apricots, peaches, melons and grapes. Our guides to Uzbek cuisine and plov explain what is on the table.

Tell us about allergies, diets and what you would rather not eat, and we take it into account when we plan your meals. In Bukhara, a dinner with a local family is the easiest way to taste home cooking.