The Silk Road's Greatest City: Timurid Tile Mosaics, Timur's Tomb & 2,750 Years of Civilisation
📍 Samarkand, Uzbekistan📅 3-day itinerary
A city 2,750 years old that Alexander the Great called the most beautiful he had ever seen, where a 14th-century conqueror built the mausoleum dome that the Taj Mahal copied 250 years later, where a Timurid astronomer calculated the length of the solar year to within 58 seconds of modern measurements, and where three 15th-century mosques around a single square display the finest ceramic tile mosaics ever made.
The Three Mosques Around One Square Where the Lions-and-Sun Tile Panels Broke Islamic Prohibition on Animal Imagery & A Market Operating Continuously for 2,000 Years That Was Already Ancient When Genghis Khan Destroyed the City
The Lane of Eleven Mausoleums Where Every Facade Surface Vanishes Under Ceramic Mosaic in Cobalt and Turquoise & The Observatory Pit Where a Medieval Astronomer Measured the Solar Year to Within One Minute's Accuracy
The Entrance Portal of the White Palace Still Standing at 38 Metres After 600 Years of Earthquakes in the Birthplace Town of the Conqueror Who Built It & The Chaikhana Tea House Where Central Asian Conversation Has Happened on Carpeted Water-Channel Platforms for Centuries