Timur, the conqueror known in the West as Tamerlane, was born in 1336 in a village near Shakhrisyabz, and when he became ruler of an empire stretching from Delhi to Damascus, he spent heavily on his home town. He made it a showpiece, and the main monument was Ak-Saray, the White Palace, begun in 1380 and never completed in his lifetime. Only two piers of the entrance portal survive, but they rise about thirty-eight metres, covered in blue, turquoise and gold tilework, and they still dwarf everything around them, a statement of power so big that it is hard to photograph from close up.
The old centre has other buildings worth finding. The Kok Gumbaz mosque, built by Timur's grandson Ulugh Beg in 1435, has a ribbed blue dome, and the ensemble of Dorut Tilovat holds tombs, including the crypt Timur prepared for himself, though he ended up buried in Samarkand. UNESCO listed the historic centre in 2000, and the city's name, which means green city, comes from its gardens, orchards and apricots, melons and grapes.
Shakhrisyabz is a town of about fifty-seven thousand, with fuel, cafes and market stalls, and Kitab, to the south, is larger, with an astronomical observatory. In Uzbekistan, much of the traffic runs on compressed natural gas, and petrol can be scarce or unevenly available, so fill up whenever you see a station that sells it, and keep a spare. The best approach is the road from Samarkand over the Hissar mountains, through the Tashtakaracha pass, with long climbs, tight bends and views of snow peaks, and a surface that has been much improved, though trucks are slow on the grades.
The best months are April, May, September and October, when the days are warm and the nights cool. Summers are very hot, often beyond forty degrees. Eat samsa, baked pastries filled with lamb, and drink green tea in a shaded courtyard, and bring a hat, because the sun on the tiled portal is fierce in the afternoon.