A morning flight from Tashkent brings you to Urgench. Our driver meets you at the airport and drives you about 30 km to your hotel in Khiva. Sleep inside the walls if you can: you get the lanes to yourself before the groups arrive and after they leave.

In the afternoon your guide walks you into Ichan-Kala through Ota-Darvoza, the West Gate. The low sun is on the Kalta-Minor, begun in 1852 and stopped at 29 m in 1855, when its khan died: the only minaret covered entirely in glazed tiles. From there we wander the lanes towards the Islam Khoja minaret and watch the sunset from a café terrace above the flat clay roofs.

Overnight in Khiva

In the morning, the Kunya-Ark beside the West Gate, the khans’ citadel, with its reception hall of 1804–1806 lined with blue and white tiles. Then across the old town to Tash Hovli, Allakuli Khan’s palace of the 1830s with more than 260 rooms; in the harem, four loggias belonged to the khan’s four wives and the fifth, the largest, to the khan.

Around noon we reach the Juma Mosque, when light falls through the openings in its roof onto 212 carved wooden columns, no two alike. Lunch is shivit oshi, Khiva’s green dill noodles. In the afternoon, the Pahlavan Mahmud mausoleum under its turquoise dome, the shrine of the poet and wrestler who became the patron saint of Khiva, and the Islam Khoja madrasah, home to the museum of applied arts. Its minaret, 56.6 m and built in 1908–1910, is the tallest in Khiva.

For the last hour of light we climb the Ak Sheikh Bobo watchtower of the Kunya-Ark: from the top, the domes, minarets and roofs come together into one picture.

Good to know: In the evening we can arrange dinner as guests of a local family in Khiva. Tell us about any food restrictions when you book.

Overnight in Khiva

After breakfast we cross the Amu Darya into Karakalpakstan. This edge of the Kyzylkum is traditionally called Elliq Qala, “fifty fortresses”: the forts that guarded the farmland of ancient Khorezm from the desert. The district still carries the name, Ellikqala.

First Toprak-Kala, the capital of Khorezm in the 2nd–3rd century AD: a city of about 500 by 350 m with a fire temple in one corner and the palace in another. Archaeologists named its halls after what they found inside, the Hall of Kings, the Hall of Victories, the Hall of Dancing Masks. Today you read the plan rather than the paintings: long clay ridges and the palace mound above them. Just west stands Kyzyl-Kala, the Red Fortress, a square fort of the 1st–4th century AD, rebuilt in the 12th century, with walls up to 16 m high; it has been restored to show what a fortress of Khorezm looked like when whole.

In the afternoon we drive about 32 km to Ayaz-Kala. It is three fortresses, not one. The oldest, Ayaz-Kala 1, crowns a hill about 100 m high and dates from the end of the 4th or the start of the 3rd century BC: double walls up to 10 m, with a vaulted corridor inside them and 45 towers. From the top you see the other two fortresses, the salt lake Ayazkul and the desert to the horizon. Your guide tells the legend of the shepherd Ayaz, who built the fortress to win the hand of a princess, and we stay on the walls for sunset.

The night is in the yurt camp on a hill near the fortresses, with dinner in the camp.

Good to know: The paths up to the walls are loose sand and crumbling clay: wear shoes with a firm grip, and keep off the tops of the walls. In the camp, showers and toilets are shared.

Overnight in a yurt camp by Ayaz-Kala

Get up for sunrise: the first light reaches the walls across the desert. After breakfast we drive to Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, about 150 km away.

In the afternoon, the State Museum of Art named after Igor Savitsky. Savitsky came to Khorezm in 1950 as the artist of the archaeological expedition led by Sergey Tolstov, the expedition that excavated Toprak-Kala, and in 1956 moved to Nukus for good. He began by collecting Karakalpak jewellery, carpets and embroidered costume, then sought out painters of the 1920s and 1930s and their families and brought their canvases to Nukus. The museum opened in 1966; today it holds about 100,000 objects.

On the walls: the Russian avant-garde, and the art the museum calls Avanguardia Orientalis, painters who settled in Central Asia and painted its towns and people, among them Alexander Volkov, with about a hundred paintings here, and Usto Mumin. Do not hurry past the halls of Karakalpak applied art, almost 10,000 pieces, and the archaeology of ancient Khorezm, more than 15,000 items, including finds from the fortresses you walked yesterday.

Good to know: The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 18:00, and closed on Mondays: we set the start date so that this day does not fall on a Monday.

Overnight in Nukus

In the morning we drive about 20 km west of Nukus, near Khodjeyli, to Mizdakhan: three hills that hold one of the most revered burial grounds of the region. We walk the hills from outside, past the domes of the Mazlum-Khan Sulu and Khalifa Erejep mausoleums. The legend says time will end when the last brick of Khalifa Erejep falls, which is why it is called the “clock of the world”. Next to them stand the ruins of Gyaur-Kala.

Mizdakhan is still a place of pilgrimage, so we walk quietly, dress modestly and do not photograph the graves or people at prayer. Back in Nukus there is time for lunch, and if the museum held you yesterday, for a second look. Then our driver takes you to the airport for the flight to Tashkent.