He pretends not to be certain which is more impressive - the number of its bridges or the number of its prostitutes. But he travels a great deal, often trading on his own account as well as serving the emperor, and he describes many cities. He is in effect a member of an occupying force, speaking Mongolian but not Chinese, so his understanding of the people is limited. Marco spends seventeen years in China, fulfilling a wide variety of tasks in Kublai Khan's administration.

They present to him young Marco - an encounter which, according to Marco, inspires immediate Mutual admiration. The Polo brothers receive a warm welcome from Kublai. Eventually, after skirting the Gobi desert, they reach Kublai Khan's summer palace - the stately pleasure dome which he has built north of the Great Wall at Shang Tu, transliterated by Marco Polo into Italian as Ciandu and now widely known as Xanadu. The little party travels by sea from Venice to Syria, then rides or walks the rest of the journey - to Tabriz and by a southerly route, through Yazd and Kerman, before joining the Silk Road to the north of the Hindu Kush. This time the journey east takes four years. Two years later the brothers set off again (they have promised Kublai Khan that they will return, with precious commodities from the west). Niccolo's son Marco, only seven when he had last seen him, is now 15. Here the brothers are once again welcomed, and once again are enticed or coerced into spending a few years (it is impossible to leave a Mongol court without the khan's permission).Īt last Kublai Khan sends them home, with letters to deliver to the pope. In Bukhara they are eventually persuaded to move yet further east, to the greatest centre of Mongol power - the court of Kublai, the great khan, in China. They travel on to Bukhara, where they stay for two or three years. The Polo brothers are advised that their wisest course is to continue eastwards to other Mongol centres along the old Silk Road.

Berke, the Muslim leader of the Golden Horde, is at war with his cousin Hulagu, the pagan ruler of Persia. They stay among the Mongols for a year, but then find their route home blocked. In 1261 they travel through the Black Sea to Sudak and then continue on to the Volga, where they visit Sarai Berke, the capital city of the Golden Horde. Two brothers, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, are Venetian merchants with interests in Constantinople and in Sudak, a Venetian colony on the coast of the Crimea.

The journey of marco polo