After Alexander the Great captured the stone fort of Samarkand he said: “Everything I have heard about it is true, except that it is more beautiful than I could imagine.”

The Tatars obliterated that city, the jewel of Uzbekistan, but Tamerlane the Great rebuilt it more beautiful than ever. He created the stunning ensemble of madrassas, decorated with geometric and calligraphic azure tiles, that can be seen today. The oasis town of Bukhara, meanwhile, is all a clay metropolis. Its centre is a brown warren of ancient souks and mosques, placed there to serve Silk Road travellers en route through the Kyzylkum desert.