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PolskiProgramme and details
Tashkent · Samarkand · Bukhara · Khiva · 8 Days / 7 Nights · Private Tour
Uzbekistan from Warsaw
Timed to the LOT flights: Tashkent – Samarkand – Bukhara – Khiva – Tashkent
LOT’s afternoon flight from Warsaw lands in Tashkent at 01:55, and the flight home leaves at 03:15 a week later. We fitted this tour between those two times. You sleep on the night you land, take the Afrosiyob to Samarkand and follow Ulugh Beg from his 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 → on 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 → to his observatory on the Kuhak hill. In Bukhara you see the buildings that a team from Lublin scanned in 3D in 2022, and the high-speed train takes you across 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. to Khiva. On the last evening a domestic flight brings you back to Tashkent for the flight to Warsaw.
| Duration | 8 days / 7 nights |
| Price | on request |
| Format | Private, on your dates, starting on the night a LOT flight from Warsaw lands |
| Where | Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva |
| Getting around | The Afrosiyob Tashkent – Samarkand – Bukhara, the high-speed train Bukhara – Khiva, a flight Urgench – Tashkent; a private car with driver for the airports, the stations and the transfers |
| Guide | An English-speaking guide, included in the price; a Polish-speaking guide on request |
| Flights | LOT LO 189 Warsaw – Tashkent and LO 190 Tashkent – Warsaw; you book the flight, we arrange everything on the ground |
Ideal for travellers from Poland on a first trip to Uzbekistan, for anyone who wants the four classic cities in one week of leave, and for readers who like to find a page of Polish history far from home.
Bukhara as Lublin scanned it: ,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 → ,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 → 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 .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 →
Khiva by fast train: across the Kyzylkum to the clay walls of 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 → in about three and a half hours.
Itinerary
Day by Day
Day 1 · Tashkent — A night landing, then plov and Chorsu
Flight LO 189 lands in Tashkent at 01:55. Our driver meets you at the airport and takes you to your hotel, where the room is booked from that night, so you can go straight to bed. Tashkent is four hours ahead of Warsaw in winter and three in summer.
After a slow morning your guide meets you for lunch, and 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. plov centres light the fires under their kazans in the morning, and by evening the best cauldrons are empty. Then 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 → under its blue dome, with dried fruit, nuts, spices and round bread from the tandir. On the way back you ride a few stops on 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 → where every station was designed as a hall of its own.
Good to know: for a quicker way through the airport we arrange the CIP Lounge “Arrival” (on request). Tomorrow’s train leaves in the morning, so we keep the evening short. More in our guides to plov and Chorsu bazaar.
Overnight in Tashkent
Day 2 · Tashkent – Samarkand — The Afrosiyob, Gur-e-Amir and the Registan
The Afrosiyob takes about 2 hours 10 minutes to Samarkand, and on the early train you arrive before 10 a.m. with the whole day ahead. Samarkand station is more than 6 km from the Registan; your driver meets you there.
Today you meet Ulugh Beg in town. 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, also holds the grave of his grandson Ulugh Beg, who governed Samarkand for forty years. On the Registan the oldest of the three madrasahs is his, built in 1417–1420, and astronomy was its most important subject. Your guide shows you its portal and the tigers on Sher-Dor across the square. Stay until dark, when the square is lit up.
Good to know: in Gur-e-Amir cover shoulders and knees and speak quietly. More in our guides to Gur-e-Amir and the Registan.
Overnight in Samarkand
Day 3 · Samarkand — Shah-i-Zinda, Afrasiyab and Ulugh Beg’s observatory
We start early at ,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 → a street of tiled mausoleums climbing the slope, most of them of the 14th and 15th centuries. About a kilometre on is the Did you know? A 7th-century mural shows envoys from Korea Uncovered by road builders in 1965, the Ambassadors' Painting at Afrasiyab shows delegations bearing gifts, Chinese with silk among them, and two men in feathered hats thought to be envoys from Korea's Goguryeo. Read more → Museum, on the hill where ancient Samarkand stood, with the Ambassadors’ Painting of about 650. The observatory is about 1.5 km further, on the Kuhak hill.
In 1690 the Prodromus astronomiae of Johannes Hevelius came off the press in Gdańsk, prepared by his wife Elisabeth after his death. Its frontispiece shows a council of astronomers around Urania, the muse of the sky, and one of the seats belongs to Ulugh Beg, whose astronomers finished a catalogue of 1,018 stars in 1437. At the observatory you walk down into the trench where the lower part of his great sextant is cut into the rock; its radius was about 40 metres. The small museum beside it has European engravings that place Ulugh Beg among the great astronomers. In the afternoon, 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 ,Samarkand's main bazaar, right next to Bibi-Khanym: Samarkand bread, dried fruit, nuts and halva. Read more → or time of your own.
Good to know: the Afrasiyab Museum is open Monday to Saturday, and with the LOT flights this day falls on a Saturday or a Monday. Shah-i-Zinda is a revered place: cover shoulders and knees, women bring a scarf. More in our guides to the Ulugh Beg Observatory and Shah-i-Zinda.
Overnight in Samarkand
Day 4 · Samarkand – Bukhara — The Ark and the Samanid Mausoleum
The Afrosiyob gets you to Bukhara in under 2 hours. Bukhara’s station is in Kagan, about 12 km from the old town; your driver meets you there.
In the afternoon, the Ark, the fortress of the rulers of Bukhara, standing on a hill that people built up over more than two thousand years. The ramp brings you up to the court mosque with its carved wooden columns and to the throne hall, the courtyard where the emirs were crowned. Across the square is 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 → with its veranda of twenty wooden columns, and then the Samanid Mausoleum in its park, a 10th-century cube of patterned brick. In June 2022 a team from the Lublin University of Technology spent a week in Bukhara with 3D scanners for the project “3D Digital ”,A network of caravan routes between China and the Mediterranean. Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva grew rich as stops along it. and the mosque and throne room of the Ark and the Samanid Mausoleum were on their list. In the evening, ,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 → where the city comes out to the water.
Good to know: the Ark is open from 9:00 to 18:00, and longer in the season. More in our guides to the Ark and the Samanid Mausoleum and Bolo-Hauz.
Overnight in Bukhara
Day 5 · Bukhara — The trading domes, Chor Minor and Poi Kalyan
In the morning, 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 → where caps, knives, carpets and jewellery are still sold under 16th-century brick vaults, and the Ulugh Beg madrasah, also scanned by the Lublin team. Then through the lanes to Chor Minor: four towers, each with a blue dome, completed in 1807 as the gatehouse of a madrasah that is gone.
The early afternoon is yours, or we drive to the potters of Gijduvan for a ceramics workshop and lunch (on request). In the late afternoon, when the low sun warms the brick, Poi Kalyan: 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 → of 1127, about 46 m tall, between the Kalyan Mosque and the Did you know? A madrasah still teaching after almost 500 years Mir-i-Arab, built in the 1530s opposite the Kalyan Mosque, was one of only three Islamic schools that kept working through the Soviet period, and it still trains students today. Read more → madrasah.
Good to know: Poi Kalyan is a working religious complex: cover shoulders and knees, women bring a scarf for the mosque, and never photograph people at prayer. In the evening, if you wish, dinner as the guests of a local family (on request). More in our guides to Poi Kalyan and Lyabi-Hauz and Chor Minor.
Overnight in Bukhara
Day 6 · Bukhara – Khiva — The high-speed train across the Kyzylkum
A free morning in Bukhara, then the station. The high-speed train calls at Bukhara at about 11:00, crosses about 450 km of the Kyzylkum and reaches Khiva at 14:31. Khiva station is a half-hour walk from Itchan Kala: your guide walks in with you, and the driver takes the luggage to the hotel.
In the late afternoon you walk along the walls of Itchan Kala, the inner town with more than 50 historic monuments, to the Did you know? A 14-metre-wide base for a tower that stopped at 29 m Kalta-Minor was begun in 1852 and meant to reach 70–80 m, but work halted in 1855 at about 29 m when its khan died. It is said to be the only minaret covered entirely in glazed tiles. Read more → by the West Gate. Work on this minaret began in 1852 and stopped in 1855 at 29 metres, against a plan of 70 to 80. Stay for the sunset on the clay walls.
Good to know: as of autumn 2026 this train runs every day except Sunday, and with the LOT flights this day falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday. Tickets go on sale 60 days before departure, and this is the first ticket we buy. More in our guide to Bukhara and Khiva by train.
Overnight in Khiva
Day 7 · Khiva – Tashkent — Itchan Kala, then the evening flight
A full day inside the walls: the ,Did you know? In the khan’s courtyard a round platform waited for a yurt The Kunya-Ark, the khans’ citadel, had its own mint, arsenal and harem. In the courtyard of its reception hall of 1804–1806 stands a round platform: a yurt was set up on it, and there the khan received envoys of the steppe nomads. Read more → the old fortress of the khans; the Did you know? Khiva's Juma Mosque stands on 212 wooden columns Recorded as early as the 10th century and rebuilt in 1788, the Juma Mosque has no portal and no domes: its flat roof rests on 212 carved columns in 17 rows, and some of them are older than the building itself. Read more → with its hall of carved wooden columns; the Did you know? In Tash-Hauli's harem each of four wives had her own loggia Allakuli Khan built the Tash-Hauli palace in 1830–1838 around three courtyards. In the harem four tall loggias belonged to the khan's four wives and a fifth, the largest, to the khan himself; behind each summer terrace lay a winter room. Read more → palace with its tiled courtyards; and the ,Did you know? Khiva's tallest minaret is barely a century old The Islam Khoja Minaret was begun in 1908, near the very end of the khans' era. At 56.6 m it is one of the tallest in Central Asia; a spiral stair of 175 steps leads up to its windowed top. Read more → the tallest in Khiva. For lunch, shivit oshi, the green dill noodles of Khorezm.
In the evening our driver takes you to Urgench airport, about 30 km from Khiva, for the flight to Tashkent, about an hour and a half in the air. Domestic flights use Terminal 3, about 4 km by road from the international Terminal 2, and our driver takes you across for flight LO 190 to Warsaw at 03:15.
Good to know: we choose the domestic flight for your date so that there is time for dinner. If you want to rest before the night flight, we book you a room in Tashkent for the evening, and the CIP Lounge “Departure” makes the airport easier (both on request). More in our guides to Itchan Kala and domestic flights.
Day 8 · Tashkent – Warsaw — The flight home
Flight LO 190 leaves Tashkent at 03:15 and lands in Warsaw at about 06:15 local time, early on Thursday or Saturday morning.
Accommodation
Where you stay
| City | Stay |
|---|---|
| Tashkent | A hotel in Tashkent, 2 nights (from the night you land) |
| Samarkand | A hotel in Samarkand, 2 nights |
| Bukhara | A hotel in Bukhara, 2 nights |
| Khiva | A hotel in Khiva, 1 night |
We confirm the hotels for your dates before booking.
Price
Price
The price is given on request: it depends on the dates, the hotels, the train classes, the size of your group and whether you want a Polish-speaking guide.
Good to know
Conditions
- The tour follows the LOT winter timetable 2026/27 (28 October – 26 March): LO 189 leaves Warsaw on Wednesdays and Fridays at 15:50 and lands in Tashkent at 01:55; LO 190 leaves Tashkent on Thursdays and Saturdays at 03:15 and lands in Warsaw at about 06:15. From 31 March 2027 the afternoon flight also runs on Saturdays. Timetables change, so check the days for your dates before you buy the flight, and we set the programme around them.
- Polish citizens need no Entry rules depend on your passport. Once you are here, each stay must be registered within three days, and hotels do it for you; customs and registration rules are in our guide. Read more → for a stay of up to 30 days. Travel on a passport valid for at least six months from the day you enter; a Polish ID card is not accepted at the border. More in our guide to Uzbekistan tours from Poland.
- As of autumn 2026 the high-speed train to Khiva does not run on Sundays. Train tickets go on sale 60 days before departure and need the full name and passport number of every traveller; we check the timetable on eticket.uzrailpass.uz before we confirm the programme. More in our guide to trains in Uzbekistan.
- Day 7 is long: a day in Khiva, an evening flight and a flight home after midnight. For a calmer week with more time in each city, see the 11-day classic tour.
- Your guide speaks English, and that is included in the price. A guide who speaks Polish is available on request: tell us when you book, the earlier the better.
- At the mausoleums and mosques, cover shoulders and knees; women bring a scarf, and shoes come off on the carpets.
- Drink bottled water: it is sold everywhere.
- Reservations are confirmed with passport copies only.
Cancellation policy
| Cancellation timing | Penalty |
|---|---|
| 21 days before the service | 20% |
| 20–7 days | 50% |
| 6–0 days | 100% |
Transportation
| Vehicle | Group size |
|---|---|
| Chevrolet Cobalt | 2 pax |
| Hyundai Starex | 3–4 pax |
| Toyota Hiace / King Long | 5–8 pax |
| Mercedes Sprinter | 9–14 pax |
Vehicles may differ in make and colour.
🌿 Responsible tourism: we allocate part of our profits to good causes and are preparing for GSTC certification.
Expert opinion
Pluses
- Built on the LOT days: from the 01:55 landing in Tashkent to the 03:15 flight home a week later.
- Trains for the long legs: 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 → to Samarkand and Bukhara, the high-speed train to Khiva and a short flight back from Urgench.
- A Polish thread: 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 →’s observatory, whose author sits in Did you know? Ulugh Beg sits among great astronomers in a Gdańsk engraving Hevelius’s star atlas, printed in Gdańsk in 1690, opens with a “council of astronomers” around Urania, the muse of the sky: Hevelius himself, Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Riccioli, William IV of Hesse and Ulugh Beg of Samarkand, whose catalogue the book includes. Read more →’s council of astronomers, and the Bukhara monuments scanned by Lublin.
Minuses
- A long last day: a day in Khiva, an evening flight and the flight home after midnight.
- One night in Khiva: an afternoon and a full day inside the walls, then the airport.
- A night landing: the first morning goes to sleep, and the sightseeing starts at lunch.
AroundCA numbers
How we counted
By the AroundCA programme: we count only what is written in the day-by-day programme of this tour. If the programme gives no figure, we show nothing.
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Walking
- Medium
Walking: Moderate: whole days on foot in the old towns, with train and flight days in between.
Best time
Apr–May, Sep–Oct
Spring and autumn are the most comfortable months; in 2027 the May weekend and the November long weekends fit a week like this.
Cool, fewer people: Jan–Feb
A typical day
On day 3 you walk the lane of tiled mausoleums at Shah-i-Zinda in the morning, see the Ambassadors’ Painting in the Afrasiyab Museum, go down to the arc of Ulugh Beg’s great sextant at his observatory, and have the afternoon for the Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Siab Bazaar.
What the price includes
What is included
- Meeting at Tashkent airport on the night you land and all transfers on the programme
- Accommodation: 7 nights with breakfast (Tashkent 2, Samarkand 2, Bukhara 2, Khiva 1)
- Train tickets: the Afrosiyob Tashkent – Samarkand and Samarkand – Bukhara, the high-speed train Bukhara – Khiva
- The flight Urgench – Tashkent on day 7, with a checked bag
- A private car with driver for the airports, the stations and the move between terminals in Tashkent
- An English-speaking local guide in every city on the programme
- Entrance tickets on the programme
Not included
- International flights Warsaw – Tashkent – Warsaw
- Lunches, dinners and drinks
- A Polish-speaking guide (on request)
- The CIP Lounge “Arrival” and “Departure” in Tashkent (on request)
- The ceramics workshop in Gijduvan and dinner with a local family in Bukhara (on request)
- A hotel room in Tashkent for the evening of day 7 (on request)
- Photo and video fees at the sites
- Tips and personal expenses
Extra cost on site
- Lunches, dinners and drinks
- The ceramics workshop in Gijduvan and dinner with a local family in Bukhara (on request)
- Photo and video fees at the sites
- Tips and personal expenses
Good for
- Travellers from Poland who want Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva in one week of leave, on the nonstop LOT flight
- First-time visitors who prefer trains and a short domestic flight to long drives
- Anyone curious about the Polish thread: Hevelius’s star book printed in Gdańsk, Ulugh Beg’s observatory and the 3D scans of Bukhara by the Lublin University of Technology
Maybe not for you if
- Travellers who want a slow pace: day 7 combines a day in Khiva with an evening flight and the flight home after midnight; our 11-day classic tour is calmer
- Those who fly in on other days or with other airlines: we build a classic route around any dates on request
- Guests who want mountains or desert: this week covers the four cities only
Questions about this tour
How much does the tour cost?
The price is given on request: it depends on the dates, the hotels, the train classes, the size of your group and whether you want a Polish-speaking guide.
Which flights does the tour fit?
The LOT winter timetable 2026/27: LO 189 leaves Warsaw on Wednesdays and Fridays at 15:50 and lands in Tashkent at 01:55; LO 190 leaves Tashkent on Thursdays and Saturdays at 03:15 and lands in Warsaw at about 06:15. From 31 March 2027 the afternoon flight also runs on Saturdays. Timetables change, so check the days for your dates; you buy the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground.
We land at 01:55. What happens on the first night?
Our driver meets you at the airport and takes you to the hotel, where your room is booked from that night. The first morning is free, and the day starts with plov at lunch. If you want a quicker way through the airport, we arrange the CIP Lounge “Arrival” (on request).
Do Polish citizens need a visa?
No, not for a stay of up to 30 days. Travel on a passport valid for at least six months from the day you enter; a Polish ID card is not accepted at the border. More in our guide to Uzbekistan tours from Poland.
Will the guide speak Polish?
Your guide speaks English, and that is included in the price. A guide who speaks Polish is available on request: tell us when you book, the earlier the better.
What is the Polish connection on this route?
In 1690 the <em>Prodromus astronomiae</em> of Johannes Hevelius came out in Gdańsk, and its frontispiece shows Ulugh Beg among a council of astronomers; on day 3 you visit his observatory in Samarkand. In June 2022 a team from the Lublin University of Technology scanned the Ark, the Samanid Mausoleum, Poi Kalyan, Chor Minor and the Ulugh Beg madrasah in Bukhara for the project “3D Digital Silk Road”, and you see them on days 4 and 5.
Didn’t find your answer? Ask about this tour →
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Tick what you’d like to add — it goes into your request, and the manager confirms the final price.
