Samarkand City Tour: the Registan, Gur-Emir and Shakhi-Zinda

<section><h2>Overview</h2><p>Samarkand is the city Amir Temur rebuilt in the fourteenth century to be the most splendid in Asia, and much of what he and his grandson Ulugbek built still stands. This tour covers all of the essentials in a single, well-paced day.</p></section><section><h2>The day</h2><p>It begins at the Gur-Emir, where Temur is buried under a ribbed turquoise dome, and continues to the Registan, three madrasas facing one another across a square. The Bibi-Khanym mosque and the Siab Bazaar follow, with lunch at the Plov Centre.</p><p>In the afternoon you visit the Khazrat Khizr mosque, the mausoleum of Islam Karimov and the necropolis of Shakhi-Zinda, a street of tiled tombs. The last stops are Ulugbek’s fifteenth-century observatory and the Meros workshop in Konigil, where paper is made from mulberry bark by hand.</p></section><section><h2>Highlights</h2><ul><li>The Gur-Emir mausoleum</li><li>The Registan</li><li>Bibi-Khanym mosque and Siab Bazaar</li><li>Shakhi-Zinda</li><li>Ulugbek’s observatory and the Konigil paper mill</li></ul></section>