Republics of the Silk Road: Tashkent to Almaty

You are met at Tashkent airport and taken to a centrally located five-star hotel. The evening begins with a champagne reception followed by a welcome dinner, with international wines served as at every meal on the tour.

Explore Uzbekistan's capital, a mix of Soviet-era avenues and old traditions, starting in the Old Town with its narrow streets and historic religious buildings. Visits to the Railway Museum and the Museum of Applied Arts follow. In the afternoon you board the Golden Eagle and settle in before a welcome dinner on board.

In Kokand, an ancient Silk Road trading post, visit the Palace of Khudayar Khan and the Jami Mosque. Continue by coach to Rishtan for a close-up pottery demonstration by a master ceramicist, then to Margilan, where a family of silk makers shows the whole process from silkworm to hand-woven ikat.

Visit the Ark, the fortified home of Bukhara's emirs, and Poi-Kalyan Square with the Kalyan Mosque and its pillar-domed galleries. Explore the Trading Domes and Lyabi-Hauz Square, then travel out of the city to the emir's Palace of the Moon and Stars.

Remote Nukus lies in Uzbekistan's north-west, surrounded by the Kara Kum, Kyzyl Kum and Ustyurt deserts. Here you visit the Savitsky State Museum, nicknamed the 'Louvre in the Sands', which holds Central Asia's largest collection of avant-garde art alongside Karakalpak crafts.

Travel to Khiva, founded some 2,500 years ago at the crossroads of routes to Mongolia, Russia, China and Persia. Within its ancient walls you discover mosques, madrassas, bazaars and minarets in a city that rises straight out of the desert.

In the afternoon visit Tajikistan's capital on the Varzob River, starting at the Museum of National Antiquities. A local expert leads you through the opulent Kohi Navruz Palace, a teahouse turned palace of chandeliered halls. The tour continues to the Ismail Samani monument, Independence Square and Mekhrgon Bazaar.

Visit Shahrisabz, believed to be the birthplace of Amir Timur, to see his statue and the ruins of his Ak-Saray Palace. Once covered in colourful mosaic and Qur'anic calligraphy, the palace took more than a quarter of a century to build.

Discover Samarkand, once the capital of Timur's empire, at Registan Square, the beautifully proportioned Bibi Khanum Mosque and the Ulugh Beg observatory. In the evening you return to the illuminated Registan for a light show from front-row seats.

Spend the morning at the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, a lane of tiled mausoleums, and the Afrasiab museum with its ancient frescoes from the Palace of Varkhuman. You return to the train for lunch and travel on through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan towards Kyrgyzstan.

An afternoon tour of Kyrgyzstan's capital, once a caravan rest stop on the Silk Road, visits Ala-Too Square and the city's parks, with Soviet-era statues of Marx and Engels and the Memorial to the Red Guards.

Spend an extended day at Lake Issyk-Kul, the vast 'warm lake' framed by snow-capped peaks. A privately arranged festival on its shore celebrates nomadic life with horseback wrestling, hunting with golden eagles, the game of ordo, music, dance and crafts. Afterwards you may visit the open-air petroglyph museum before dinner on the train.

A morning tour of Kazakhstan's largest city takes in Panfilov Park, home to the Zenkov Cathedral built entirely of wood without nails, and Independence Square. In the evening the group gathers for a farewell dinner at the hotel.

After breakfast you are transferred to Almaty airport for your onward flight.