Describe a place in your own country that you would like to visit

A place in my own country I'd really like to visit is the city of Khiva, which is in the west of Uzbekistan. It's an ancient walled city that's famous for its blue-tiled minarets, narrow lanes and old caravanserais, and it's often described as an open-air museum.

I know quite a bit about it from school history lessons, television programmes and stories from relatives who have been there. The old town, called Itchan Kala, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's said to look much as it did hundreds of years ago, when it was a key stop on the Silk Road. The city is surrounded by high mud-brick walls, and inside you can climb the minarets to look across the rooftops, visit palaces with beautifully decorated rooms, and wander through craft markets selling carpets, ceramics and carved wooden items. I'd also like to try the local dishes.

If I went, I'd spend at least three days there. I'd walk through the old streets early in the morning, before it gets too hot or crowded, climb the tallest minaret at sunset to take photographs, and visit a local workshop where craftspeople make traditional silk.

The reason I haven't been yet is a mixture of distance and timing. It's a long journey from where I live, and I've always been busy with study or work. I've never got around to it. But I want to go for several reasons: it's a part of my heritage that I know too little about, I love history and architecture, and I think everyone should discover their own country before travelling abroad.