April and October are the honest answers. Here is what the other ten months are actually like.
Everyone will tell you spring or autumn, and everyone is right. But the shoulder weeks are where the good trips hide, so here is the year as we live it.
March
Cold until Navruz on the 21st, then suddenly not. The city cooks sumalak on every corner in the week around it, the almond trees go over, and hotel prices are still low. Bring a coat you can take off.
April to May
The best six weeks of the year. Everything is green, the monuments are photographable at any hour, and the bazaar fills with the first apricots. It is also when everyone else comes: book rooms and Afrosiyob train tickets three to four weeks ahead.
June to August
Thirty-eight degrees at three in the afternoon, and it will not soften. This is survivable if you rearrange the day: out at seven, back by eleven, courtyard until five, out again until late. Rooms are cheap and the squares belong to you at dawn.
September to October
Our own favourite. The heat breaks in the second week of September, melons are at their best, and October light on the tilework is the reason photographers come back. Slightly quieter than April.
November to February
Cold, sometimes snow, short days. Also: no queues anywhere, half-price rooms, and Shah-i-Zinda under snow, which almost nobody sees. If you have been before and want the city to yourself, this is the answer.
