Our next hotel is slap bang in the middle of Buchara town and whilst we can not get the coach near there are several young boys who eagerly rush around looking after our bags.
Now I dont normally show pictures of hotels but this is an exception as it is a restored merchants house so lots of courtyards and rooftop terraces and they have retained much of the local culture and decoration so this is quite a change from the Soviet style we have become accustomed to.
See very nice indeed,
We arrive in the early evening and after settling in we go off for dinner which is had on a restaurant rooftop which serves to remind us it is still very warm around here (we were told to expect a continental European climate so late Sept we were expecting to need jerseys and coats not shorts and sunscreen)
A little bit of background from Wikipedia
Bukhara and the region around has been inhabited since around the 6th century BC, and the city itself has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion.
The historic center of Bukhara, which contains numerous mosques and madrassa’s, has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Persian-speaking Tajiks constitute the largest element of the city’s population remember I told you Stalin had changed the borders and it use to be in Tajikistan hence the people speak Tajik.
The city has long had a mixed population including Jews and other ethnic minorities, (more about these people in a day or two)