Que faire à Tashkent, Uzbekistan

1. Chorsu Bazaar

Tashkent

Bargain for silk beneath a 42-meter turquoise dome at the heart of city life. Taste your way through spice mountains, sizzling kebabs, and tandoor-fresh bread.

Faits rapides: The turquoise dome stretches 42 meters across and covers nearly 4,000 square meters of market space. Vendors have traded spices, silks, and meats on this spot for over a thousand years; the Soviets erected the current structure in 1980.

Points forts: The dome's 80,000 turquoise tiles shift color throughout the day from pale sky blue to deep teal depending on the sun. Descend the ramp to the underground ring where the temperature drops 10 degrees Celsius and dozens of butchers work by hanging whole carcasses on hooks beneath blue fluorescent lights.