The Grand Silk Road: Tashkent to Beijing

Day 1 — Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Arrive in Tashkent and transfer to a five-star hotel in the centre. The evening opens with a champagne reception and the welcome dinner, where you meet the group.

Day 2 — Tashkent

Uzbekistan's capital was largely rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, so Soviet planning sits over a much older city. The Old Town comes first, including a small library holding the world's oldest Koran, then the Railway Museum and the Museum of Applied Arts. In the afternoon you board the Golden Eagle and settle into your cabin; dinner is on board.

Day 3 — Kokand, Rishtan and Margilan

A day in the Fergana Valley. Kokand was one of the great Silk Road trading posts, and you see the Palace of Khudayar Khan — the Pearl of Kokand — and the Jami Mosque. Rishtan is the centre of Uzbek ceramics, where a master potter works through the process in front of you. At Margilan, a family who have made silk for generations show the whole chain, from the mulberry trees that feed the worms to hand-weaving ikat on traditional looms.

Day 4 — Bukhara

Bukhara was restored for its 2,500th anniversary in 1999 and is outstanding. You visit the Emir's summer palace — the Palace of the Moon and Stars — then the historic centre: The Ark, the fortress from which the Emirs ruled until Soviet times, and Poi-Kalyan Square with the Kalyan Mosque, still in use. There is time among the Trading Domes and at Lyabi-Hauz Square under the mulberry trees. Weather permitting, a barbecue on the station platform before the train leaves.

Day 5 — Nukus

Nukus sits in the far north-west of Uzbekistan, ringed by the Kara Kum, Kyzyl Kum and Ustyurt deserts. Its improbable treasure is the Igor Savitsky State Museum of Fine Arts — the Louvre in the Sands — which holds some 100,000 works, including a collection of Soviet avant-garde art that survived precisely because it was so far from Moscow.

Day 6 — Khiva

Khiva was founded 2,500 years ago at the crossing of the routes between Mongolia, Russia, China and Persia, and it survives as a complete walled city and World Heritage Site. Within the walls, the mosques, madrassas, bazaars and minarets stand close enough together to read as one continuous piece of architecture rising out of the desert.

Day 7 — Dushanbe, Tajikistan

An afternoon in the Tajik capital on the Varzob River. The Museum of National Antiquities comes first, then the Kohi Navruz Palace — begun as a teahouse and finished as something else entirely, hall after hall of chandeliers and carved detail, explained by a local guide. Afterwards, the Ismail Samani monument, Independence Square and the Mekhrgon Bazaar.

Day 8 — Shahrisabz

Shahrisabz is thought to be the birthplace of Amir Timur, who modelled himself on Genghis Khan and conquered by much the same methods. You visit his statue and the Ak-Saray Palace, which took more than twenty-five years to build and still carries its mosaic facing and Qur'anic inscriptions, including one dated 1395-96.

Day 9 — Samarkand

Samarkand is the name that means the Silk Road. Founded in the 6th century BC, it peaked as Timur's capital, and the buildings of the 14th to 17th centuries are what survive: Registan Square, the Bibi Khanum Mosque, and the Ulugh Beg observatory of 1428, among the earliest in the Islamic world. After dark you return to Registan for the illuminated light show, from front-row seats.

Day 10 — Samarkand

A second morning here, at the Shakh-i-Zinda necropolis — a corridor of mausoleums going back to the 9th century, tiled in blues that have not faded — and at Afrasiab, where the museum holds the 7th-century frescoes from the Palace of Varkhuman. Lunch is back on board as the train runs on through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan towards Kyrgyzstan.

Day 11 — Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Bishkek began as a caravan stop on the Silk Road and spent the 20th century as a Soviet city, which is what you mostly see now: Ala-Too Square, built in 1984 for the 60th anniversary of the Kirghiz SSR, and parks holding statues of Marx and Engels and the memorial to the Red Guards.

Day 12 — Lake Issyk-Kul

Issyk-Kul is the second largest alpine lake in the world. Its name means warm lake — depth, minerals and geothermal activity keep it from freezing, though snow-capped peaks ring it. A festival is arranged privately for the group on the shore: the steppe sports handed down through generations. Archery you will know; horseback wrestling, hunting with golden eagles and ordo, played with animal bones, you probably will not. Music, dance, costume and craft demonstrations complete it, with the option of the open-air Museum of Petroglyphs before dinner back on the train.

Day 13 — Almaty, Kazakhstan, then Kashgar

Almaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan, laid out in wide tree-lined boulevards under the Tien Shan; its name comes from alma, apple, and the orchards start just outside town. The morning tour takes in Panfilov Park with the Zenkov Cathedral, built entirely of wood and without nails, and Independence Square. Here you leave the Golden Eagle. In the afternoon a private flight carries the group to Kashgar, in Xinjiang, for one night in a five-star hotel.

Day 14 — Kashgar, China

Kashgar has been a meeting point of cultures and faiths for as long as the Silk Road has existed. The Apak Khoja Tomb, the holiest Muslim site in Xinjiang, comes first, then the Old Town alleys and the Gaotai folk houses. In the afternoon you board the Golden Eagle Silk Road Express for its welcome dinner — the second half of the journey begins here.

Day 15 — Hotan

A relaxed morning on board before Hotan, once the Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan. You visit an atlas silk and carpet workshop where everything is handmade, dyed with plant dyes and woven by hand, then see the ancient city of Yotkan by night.

Day 16 — Golmud

A lecture on the history of the Silk Road at the Hilton Qinghai-Golmud, and lunch there. The afternoon offers a choice between the Chaerhan Salt Lake, a pale expanse of salt flats and mineral deposits, and a guided walk through the city.

Day 17 — Dunhuang

The Mogao Caves, known as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, are several hundred grottoes cut into the cliffs of the Gobi, painted and carved from the 4th century onward. Local folk artists perform as you move through. After lunch, a camel trek over the dunes to Crescent Lake, a spring-fed oasis that has outlasted thousands of years of sandstorms.

Day 18 — On board the Golden Eagle Silk Road Express

A day with nothing scheduled. The observation car has the largest window of any train in China; the lounge has the wine and cocktail list.

Day 19 — Xi'an

Xi'an's city walls and the Great Mosque in the morning, then the Terracotta Warriors — some 6,000 life-sized figures guarding the tomb of China's first emperor, each individually modelled, and found only in 1974. The evening is a Tang Dynasty banquet with music and dance.

Day 20 — Beijing

Arrive in Beijing. The classic tour covers the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace; the alternative takes in the Olympic Village and the Bird's Nest, the CCTV Tower and the National Museum. Afterwards, transfer to the Four Seasons Beijing, or similar, for two nights.

Day 21 — Beijing

A morning at the Great Wall at Badaling, walking a restored section with the hills running away on both sides. The afternoon is free. In the evening, Peking duck at one of the city's celebrated restaurants, carved at your table.

Day 22 — Beijing

Transfer to Beijing airport for your onward flight.