Samarkand. Day 14

 Samarkand has quite a few tourists - like Bakhara. There are Russians everywhere, and quite a few Chinese here; I think it's eqasy to get to.

Our first stop was was memorial and mausoleum for Timur (aka Tamerlane) who was a 14th Century local Samarkand boy made good (or bad, of you were one of the hundreds of thousands he killed). He was kind of a big deal at the time, and the last of the really big nomad emperors before things changed. So his memorial was big and impressive, and moderately crowded.

From there we were bussed back to the middle of town and dropped at Registan Square. This is an iconic sight, at east within Central Asia. Essentially a very big square framed by three madrasas built over an extended period. The middle one was also a mosque at times. These are very much the equivalent of churches and cathedrals in Europe. Individually impressive but hard to distinguish from one another after you've been to a few. In the last building we had an entertaining demonstration of local musical instruments, which are mostly stringed and vaguely guitar shaped with varying numbers of strings. From there we walked back to the hotel for our afternoon break.

Registan Square


We reassembled at 3pm for a one hour bus trip to a winery. This was Bagizagan, one of only two wineries in the district (I think). We got a tour of the cellars then sat down for a tasting. I made notes on a couple of the wines. When I said of the Cabernet Uz (ie cabernet of Uzbekistan) 'I don't mind this one', Lynn said 'shocking'. The vigneron said '2021 was a very good year' and Lynn muttered 'tastes like vinegar'. For the shiraz she said ''this is starting to oxidize'. Surprisingly she thought the sweet dessert wine was okay. But sensibly didn't try the cognac (harsh) or the white cognac (aviation fuel).

Paint stripper White cognac

The bus got back just in time for everyone to go to the shaslick restaurant 100m from our hotel. It was pretty good. You order by the shaslick, so you get just what you want. After the wine tasting I stuck to fermented yoghurt drink and Lynn to water.



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