Hello everyone!
Could you please advise whether it is worth going to Bukhara if Samarkand is already planned? Are they fundamentally different from each other? Or would it be better to stay in Samarkand for the extra day and go to the mountains instead? I’d be glad to hear your opinions.
If it’s only for one day, then I wouldn’t bother. Otherwise, for me, Bukhara is fundamentally different.
Yes, I have only planned one day for Bukhara. So now I’m wondering whether I should go or stay in Samarkand for a third day 🤔
How many days do you have for Samarkand?
Two days in Samarkand, one day in Bukhara.
Two days in Samarkand
Two days in Samarkand are absolutely enough to see everything. The city is small. If you walk around / use taxis during lunchtime, you can even cover all the main places in one day, both the major sights and something like the Ferris wheel on the outskirts of the city or the Eternal City, and you can even make it to Al-Bukhari as well. So, if you want, you can visit Bukhara, go to the mountains, and see Samarkand too.
Not enough. Two days if you’re running around. They are different cities. Bukhara is the Ark, the Zindan and the city centre with its narrow streets. If you’re not an aesthete, there isn’t much else to see. You arrive in the morning, spend the night, leave in the evening. You’ll see everything without rushing.Two days in Samarkand are absolutely enough
Samarkand, on the other hand, is bigger and has far more places to see. I have been almost everywhere in Uzbekistan. Every city is different, but Samarkand and Tashkent are the richest in terms of ancient culture.
I wouldn’t say that.Not enough.
Let me tell you about my two days, which could easily be combined into one. 8:00 — breakfast. 9:00 — a four-hour walking tour, visiting all the main sights and going inside each one to look around, absolutely without rushing, and you’re walking between them as well. You could even arrange a photo session at Shah-i-Zinda (+50 minutes).
@This is where I went back to my room to sleep, because my train was at night, and I only continued the next day at 15:00@
13:50 — take a taxi for 10 minutes to the Ulugh Beg Observatory / museum. Reading all the texts takes no more than 20 minutes (the museum is very small), especially if you have already read the history in the two main museums in Tashkent.
You can also have lunch there at some oshqand place.
15:00 — drive 40 minutes to Al-Bukhari, take your time looking around the entire complex, sit through one of the prayers on the lower ground floor — that’s 1.5 hours. Then another 30 minutes to get to Neo Park, which has the largest Ferris wheel in Central Asia. 17:40. Ride the Ferris wheel, feed the animals at the zoo. 19:00. Drive 40 minutes to the Eternal City, see the Eternal City in the evening, and you can also have dinner at the Afrosiab restaurant there. 19:40–22:00.
That’s it.
In theory, you could shorten the time at the Eternal City or extend the whole period from 7:00 to 23:00, and then you could easily stop by the bazaar as well. The route is also not entirely optimal. I wanted to see the Eternal City in the evening, but otherwise you could put it after Ulugh Beg and finish with the Ferris wheel.
And in general, the only things missing from this plan are the bazaar and Hazrati Khizr. Everything can be done absolutely without rushing.
Or, in general, you could split it over two days for an extremely easy pace and lots of free time, adding one hour to each of the 10 locations.
@maxim Judging by your description, you didn’t see anything at all.
There are so many beautiful and interesting places in Samarkand. Historical, cultural and aesthetic.
Just the paper factory alone is worth it. There is nature, history and design work all together.
You can’t run through the Registan, Gur-e-Amir and Shah-i-Zinda at a gallop. You need to feel this history and really look at it.
My mother was an architect and artist. When I saw the drawings of the hand-carved doors that they actually made in practice at these historical sites, every single stroke had its own story!
The Eternal City during the day and in the evening are absolutely different. You cannot fit the fountains and laser show into one day. And you can’t possibly count all the delicious, atmospheric, cosy restaurants by simply eating plov and shashlik.
And trips to Zamin and the unforgettable Seven Lakes are particularly good when starting from Samarkand.
Yes, a trip outside Samarkand into the mountains really didn’t fit into this itinerary. This is a route around Samarkand itself.
And yes, I didn’t know about the paper factory. If you mean Konigil Meros (according to 2GIS), I looked it up, and indeed it would have been worth visiting. I had the time.
Visiting all the atmospheric restaurants in Samarkand is not a very good goal, because it’s difficult to accomplish. It would be better to choose the three best ones for one day, and that would be enough.
Otherwise, you would have to set yourself the goal of doing a gastronomic tour and stay here for a month, making your own top list.
And you could say the same about a huge number of cities around the world with a national cuisine.
There are different types of travellers. Some people can sit on a bench for four hours looking at Gur-e-Amir, breathing in the air and atmosphere of the 15th century.
There are others who are simply interested in touching history and listening to legends.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I stay longer at legendary locations and speed up when I reach places that I’m not interested in or that don’t feel relevant or connected to the city.
Samarkand is not a famous city of fountains and laser shows)
Honestly, you can find similar entertainment in every city. It exists, but it definitely doesn’t belong in the “must-see” category.
If I skip the show, I certainly wouldn’t say that I didn’t see Samarkand)
I looked at Samarkand as a part of history, with unusual architecture and the colourful atmosphere of an Oriental fairy tale, and overall this itinerary completely covers that.
And when you have limited time, if the choice is between sitting at Gur-e-Amir for four hours or taking a good guided tour and reducing Gur-e-Amir to one hour, it’s better to choose the excursion.
And especially when you have limited time, if you want to see every location both during the day and in the evening, you wouldn’t have enough time even in a week)
I’m one of those travellers who sits on a bench at every attraction for about two hours, which is why I spent three weeks in Samarkand.
I explored four mahallas of Samarkand, wandered through the narrow streets and talked with local residents, walked all over Afrosiab (the ancient settlement), saw Russian Samarkand, visited three Orthodox churches and a Christian cemetery.
Samarkand 👍❤️
I would like that too, but surely among everything you saw there must be something more worthwhile than the other attractions.
Afrosiab itself, for example, is not as impressive as the Registan, and for tourists coming to Samarkand for the first time for just 1–2 days, it is absolutely not suitable to take them around every corner of the city.
And if they skip it, I doubt many of them would be willing to return to Samarkand specifically for Afrosiab.
Returning to the original point and the answer to the other person’s question, I would say that yes, you can see Samarkand in one day. Yes, you can also go deeper into the atmosphere, but it’s like with a kulich.
For most people, eating just the top part is enough to enjoy it)
But personally, I chose Bukhara as the place where I’ll sit on the benches, walk through the narrow streets without guided tours, delve into the archaeological layers of the Great Silk Road and talk to local people.
I’ll spend three days doing exactly that)
Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to travel for that long.I spent three weeks in Samarkand.
We only managed to squeeze 10 days out of our entire programme, and that is incredibly little.
I also like to stay in a city for at least five days to really feel it, but since we probably won’t come back to Uzbekistan again — because of our age, financial considerations and family circumstances — we wanted to see as much as possible.
Originally, we had planned three cities, but then Khiva somehow got into the plans, so we had to take one day away from Tashkent and one day from Samarkand.
And it turned into a mad dash through Europe.
On top of that, we chose a very hot time of year, so getting around was difficult.
In the end, we remembered the sights, but we never got a complete feeling for the cities....