A dash around Tashkent!

Six hours and 40 minutes with Uzbekistan Airways was uneventful, local time being around 4am on arrival. 20 Great Railwayers were rounded up by Georgina and in a short space of time we were in the Radisson Blu having been given the non-stop itinerary for the next couple of days. Basically, today is our only opportunity to see Tashkent so after a four-hour snoozette it was down to breakfast! Dinner will be 7pm tonight then it’s early to bed as we are up again by 4am to go back to the airport for a one and a half hour flight west tomorrow (14th).
And so we set off around Tashkent about 12 and were out til 5.45 pm, the last museum on the itinerary missed out as no time left to visit it! Our local guide, Shakira, spoke her many words of wisdom, firstly at the Mosque, the home of the largest Koran in the World, amongst beautiful domes and minarets, then onto the huge market to see and taste some of the Uzbekistan locally grown and made wares and lastly to squeeze onto the Tashkent Underground to go and see some of the beautiful Metro Stations constructed in the Soviet era. It was 28 degrees with a beautiful blue sky. Tashkent is a busy and vibrant city with the same problem as the M60! There is a mix of the old white Soviet era apartment blocks and more modern buildings. Shop signs are Uzbek, Russian and English. Young Uzbeks come up to chat and practise their English-very polite and fascinated by where we live. Having said that, our local guide has now asked me twice if I am Russian-said my face has a look of a Russian ….. 😳 Hope she doesn’t want a tip at the end of this… 🤣😂
Back to the hotel at 5.45, quick blog and shower as we meet at 7 to eat out in a local restaurant.

Update: Alarm set for 03.45!Read more