“For lust of knowing what should not be known— We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.”

So wrote poet James Elroy Flecker in 1913, who had perhaps an unduly romantic view of what motivated many of Uzbekistan’s earlier visitors. A more realistic explanation was proffered in the thirteenth century by the Persian historian ata-Malik Juvayni. In his History of the World-Conqueror, he recorded the response of one inhabitant to the sack of Bukhara by Chingis Khan in 1220: ‘They came, they sapped, they burned, they slew, they trussed up their loot and were gone’.

Your own visit – with or without loot in mind – will probably begin in Toshkent, the somewhat dreary capital of modern Uzbekistan. From there you can proceed to your ultimate goal: the Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarqand. Toshkent cannot be blamed for not being more interesting: much of it was destroyed in a 1966 earthquake, and its rebuilding was a late triumph for the Soviet school of uninspired architecture. The advantage of starting there, however, is that you will be all the more impressed by Khiva, which should probably be your first proper destination...