Spanning over 2,000 years of history, UNESCO-listed Bukhara offers cool shade and rest to the modern traveller as it did to the camel caravans that plied the Silk Road hundreds of years ago. A keyway point along the Silk Route, Bukhara thrived for generations on cross-cultural trade between East and West, eventually growing into one of the most important commercial and intellectual centres of the Persian world.  It’s ideal location made it especially attractive to many of the world’s greatest empires and it became a notoriously coveted chess piece for the likes of Tamerlane (Amir Timur), Genghis Khan and perhaps most famously Britain and Russia as part of their “Great Game” for control over Central Asia.  

Bukhara not as widely known as Samarkand is just as old, and its ancient architecture and design have remained remarkably well-preserved throughout the ages. The Old Town, encompassing over 140 protected architectural treasures, with its maze of handsome medieval mud-brick buildings, ornately patterned madrassahs and billowing turquoise domes has a unified and authentic feel and is often said to paint the most complete picture of life along the Silk Road before the turn of the century.