Samarkand - Day 3

Farik has rearranged the itinerary so that the two half day's free time are now a whole day (Sunday) and there is an optional excursion through the mountains to Shakhirsabz, Tamerlane's birthplace.  Everyone decided they'd like to go, so a fleet of taxis was arranged as the roads are too steep and twisting for a large coach.

The journey is around 90kms and should take just under 2 hours.  I took a few snaps from the window although I have no idea what they are of.  We decided this must be the smallest hotel ever.

The yellow flowers are wild asparagus.

What a view!

The Ak-Saray (White) Palace, commissioned by Amir Temur in 1400s, now a ruin it is famous for its massive entrance portal which was once the largest in Central Asia.

I found this drawing on line which is how they thought the arch would have looked.

A glass walkway has been built over the original tiling.

Looking back towards the arch.

The grounds were full of tulipifera liriodendron

And the Horse-Chestnuts were in flower, we don't often see red ones (Aesculus x carnea) in England.

This is a White Mulberry (morus alba)

This is the crypt of Amir Temur, the subterranean chamber was discovered in 1963 and features a limestone sarcophagus covered in Arabic inscriptions.  Although intended as his burial site, as we actually saw yesterday, Amir Temur was actually buried in the Gur Emir mausoleum in Samarkand.

I love the grass growing out of the top of this minaret.

The grounds were all beautifully laid out and kept immaculately.

The Kuk Gumbaz Mosque, constructed between 1434 and 1435 by Ulug Beg, it has a beautiful large, blue-tiled dome and intricate facade inscriptions.

It was stunning, both inside and out.

Next door was an equally beautiful mausoleum.

The whole complex is vast and so pedal carts and motorised buggies are used to ferry visitors around.

These two prams caught my attention.

And some of the items for sale on the various stalls.  I'd already bought a handbag like this and actually you can't fit much in it.

Traditional style slippers.

Fluffy Bactrian camels.

And the pièce de résistance, plastic yellow chickens which instantly reminded me of Wallace & Gromit's Feathers McGraw, who of course was actually a penguin in disguise.

It was decided that we'd stop for lunch on the way back.

The restaurant stop was really busy and it was clearly going to take quite a while to get served so quite a few of us didn't want to bother.  Farik sorted the cars out and most of us (12) headed back to town.  Unfortunately the traffic was nose to tail for many miles.

But it did give me the opportunity to take some photos out of the window.  If you look carefully there are people on the very top of the large boulder.

So it's actually quite easily to understand the language - Tandoori Meat.

This headdress is traditional and the flowers are fresh but I can't make out what they are.

Slightly better shots of the wild asparagus which brightened up the hillsides.

With the number of cars driving past on this dusty road, the hats must be filthy.  Interesting contrast in styles though; beanie type, wide-brimmed and on the top of the car what look to be face shields like we wore in the covid clinic.

The white things on sale here are cheese balls, probably made of qurt (dried fermented milk).

There was also stall after stall of rhubarb on the roadside which presumably grows wild and is harvested/sold by the locals.

As we got closer to town the traffic eased a little but unfortunately we had a dreadful thunderstorm.  We felt very sorry for our taxi driver but gave him a good tip when he got us safely back to the hotel.