Xi’an

From Chang’an the silk set out; to Xi’an the journey returns.

Xi'an—the ancient Chang'an—is the eastern anchor of the entire Silk Road, the imperial capital from which the silk first set out toward Rome. To arrive here, having crossed Europe and Central Asia, is to close a circle two thousand years in the making and to stand where Marco Polo's whole journey was always pointed.

Beneath the Tang-era city walls, the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor still stands guard, and the Wild Goose Pagoda recalls the monk Xuanzang's own return from the West. The Muslim Quarter's lanes hum with the descendants of Silk Road traders. Here the road that began at the Eternal City meets the city that was, for the East, the center of the world.

The two ends of one road, at last in the same place.