Ashgabat

Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, is one of the most surreal and extraordinary cities on earth, a gleaming, immaculate metropolis rebuilt in lavish white marble and gold rising from the edge of the Karakum desert. Holding the world record for the highest concentration of white-marble buildings, its broad, spotless boulevards are lined with grandiose palaces, ministries, fountains and monuments, from the towering Neutrality Arch topped by a formerly rotating golden statue to giant gilded emblems. Eerily clean, orderly and often empty, it is a monument to the personality cults of the nation's leaders and a genuinely astonishing sight.

What you actually see

• The white-marble city - the gleaming marble boulevards and palaces.
• The Neutrality Monument - the towering arch and golden statue.
• The gilded monuments - the grandiose statues and emblems.
• The Independence Park - the vast ceremonial monuments.

When to go

Spring, April to May, and autumn, September to October, for the mildest weather, as the desert summers are fiercely hot; the marble city gleams under the sun and its monuments are floodlit at night. It is usually seen at the start or end of a guided tour of the country.

Honest expectations

Ashgabat is strange and often unsettling, spotlessly clean, heavily policed and eerily empty, with strict rules on photography around government buildings, reflecting the tightly controlled nature of one of the world's most authoritarian states, so visits are on official guided tours with real restrictions. It can feel more showpiece than living city. As a genuinely jaw-dropping, otherworldly spectacle of marble and gold, though, nowhere else looks like it.

Nearby

The ancient ruins of Nisa and the Karakum desert are close by.