After visiting Tashkent, the capital to Uzbekistan, we took an early flight to Urgench and drove 40 minutes to Khiva. The city is remote and relatively small, but it´s not short in charm and beautiful surprises in the old town.

Khiva is a very well preserved medieval old town, the first site declared UNESCO Word heritage in Central Asia and for a good reason. Madrassahs, mosques and unique minarets representative of the Islamic architecture protected by a beautiful fortress, on top of this this was my first experience of this Uzbek-oriental architecture and this always plays an important role when you see something like this for the first time.

Where to stay

You can stay literally inside the Old town (Itchan Kala), but there are several hotels literally just in front of the fortress and it takes you 5-10 minutes to get to the main entrance. Our hotel, Asia Hotel, was one of the several places that have been renovated to be dedicated to tourism but gives you a nice taste of the architecture and charm of the old town. I definitely recommend staying in any of the hotels who are right outside the walls but pretty much already in Itchan Kala.

How long does it take to visit?

As I always say this is subjective. I am a fast paced traveller and I really look forward to maximize my time by using all feasible hours (rest? what is that?), that being said I full day should be enough to explore the Old Town as the main attraction considering everything is inside the fortress. I do recommend though to get a local guide at least to locate some of the hidden places if you are just walking around by yourself. I was travelling with a group and the guide took us to the main places, later in the afternoon I came back by myself to concentrate more on the photos I wanted to take with more quality time. However, it was very useful to know where to walk to directly.

What impressed me the most..

The easy easy way of of this question is everything 😉 buuut… In Khiva the highlight for sure are the super tall and colourful minarets as they are unique and unlike anything I had seen. Also some of the courtyards with stunning blue tiles. This is a place you can´t get bored of taking pictures, and you can include yourself in them with awesome backgrounds.

Photo gallery

Judge by ourselves the architecture you can admire in Khiva, it´s surely a place to be seen, appreciated and certainly photographed.

Not convinced yet? 😉