Armenia and Uzbekistan 2023

It was a very early (i.e., 2AM!) rise, in order to get to the Tashkent Airport for our 5:45AM flight to Frankfurt.  Unlike back in Canada, flights here never seem to be canceled or delayed.  It is an incredibly efficient air transportation system.  This morning's flight, however, was delayed by half an hour, due to a late inbound aircraft.  But we made up the time enroute.  It was a wonderful, comfortable flight to Germany, and we had a full row in the back of the Dreamliner (B-787) to ourselves. Frankfurt, in contrast, was a mess of long lines in a very hot airport building.  We did duck into a business lounge for a short rest, but the rest of our six hours in Frankfurt were less than desirable, and we breathed a sigh of relief when we finally boarded our Condor B-767 to Halifax, which left an hour late. It was nice to touch down and enter the familiarity of our beloved Halifax Airport.  Customs was easy and quick, our bags came out after a short wai...

Tashkent is a big city of almost 3,000,000. Its sheer size, and the fact that most of the city was destroyed in the 1966 earthquake, means that it doesn’t offer the same sort of experience that Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva do. Nonetheless, we had a good day, zipping all over the city to take in what we could. And that wasn’t easy, given that it was 42°. Here are the highlights of what we saw during our day in Tashkent, the last day of our vacation (not counting our return travel day). The four candidates for president of Uzbekistan. The election was held on Sunday, which saw the existing president reelected. He had just recently amended the constitution to allow the president to stay in office for another seven years. The leviathan Hazroti Imom Friday Mosque and associated buildings: Hazroti Imom Friday Mosque.  It's hard to describe the magnitude of this place, with its two 54m massive minarets.  It was ordered built by former President Karimov in 2007. Rear view of the Haz...

( Additional text to be added. ) This morning was meant to be light, given that we had to travel from Khiva to Tashkent this afternoon.  As the Farovon is quite luxe, we wanted to be able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast and also to soak up the ambience of the place before leaving for the airport in new ar by Urgench.  (Khiva doesn’t have an airport and is served by Urgench, the largest city in western Uzbek.)   The Farovon was quite empty.  July is - no surprise - the hottest month of the year, so tourist numbers are thin.  Yet again, we had another breakfast buffet almost to ourselves. We got a cab at 9:30AM and within 15 minutes were were exploring the North Gate and walls of the northern part of Old Town.  Most of the sights are located between the West and East Gates, but we still wanted to get a sense of the northern section which, by the way, is considered to be the place to watch the sun set..  Unfortunately, we were feeling too “done in” by th...