Journey
1271 – 1295 · 21 stops · 29,500 km
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In 1271 the young Marco Polo left Venice with his father and uncle for the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. They reached it three and a half years later, stayed some seventeen years, and came home by sea and through Persia in 1295. Much of their road is uncertain, and some scholars doubt parts of Marco's story; the legs that are guesses are drawn faint.
1271 · Setting out
In 1271 Marco, then about seventeen, set out from Venice with his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo, who had already been to the court of Kublai Khan and had promised to go back.
“So they set out from Venice, taking Mark along with them, and went straight back to Acre, where they found the Legate of whom we have spoken.”Who held this place then: Republic of Venice (nearby)
1271 · By sea, 2,600 km
At Acre, in the Holy Land, the papal legate Tedaldo Visconti gave them letters for the Khan, and they went up to Jerusalem for oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulchre, as Kublai had asked.
Who held this place then: Kingdom of Jerusalem
1271 · By sea, 440 km
At Ayas, the port of Lesser Armenia, news came that Tedaldo had been elected Pope Gregory X. They sailed back to Acre for his letters and two Dominican friars and set out again from Acre about November 1271, but at Ayas the friars turned back, afraid of the Mamluk sultan Baybars.
Who held this place then: Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (nearby)
c. 1272 · By land, 2,800 km (the way is a guess)
They crossed Armenia and Persia, probably by Erzurum and Tabriz early in 1272, though Yule thought they went by Baghdad and down the Gulf, and reached Hormuz meaning to sail for China. Deciding not to risk the ships there, they turned north to go overland.
“Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut.”Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1272 · By land, 1,700 km (the way is a guess)
From Hormuz they rode back through Kerman and across the deserts into Khorasan, then by Sheberghan to Balkh. Marco calls it a noble city, much greater in former days, ruined by the Mongols and other nations.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1272 – c. 1273 · By land, 340 km (the way is a guess)
Badakhshan, whose mountains gave balas rubies and lapis lazuli, pleased the travellers, and they stayed about a year. Marco says he had been ill until he was advised to go up into the hills, whose air cured him.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1273 · By land, 310 km (the way is a guess)
Up the valley of Wakhan they climbed to the high plain Marco calls Pamier, twelve days' ride with no dwelling and nothing green. Which way they crossed the Pamirs is not known.
“The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even see any birds flying. And I must notice also that because of this great cold, fire does not burn so brightly, nor give out so much heat as usual, nor does it cook food so effectually.”Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1273 · By land, 320 km (the way is a guess)
Coming down the far side of the mountains they reached Kashgar, on the main Silk Road. Marco describes its gardens, vineyards and cotton, and its merchants who went trading all over the world.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1274 · By land, 440 km (the way is a guess)
They probably followed the oases along the southern edge of the Taklamakan, by Yarkand to Khotan, a land of cotton, vineyards and gardens whose people, Marco says, lived by trade and crafts and were no soldiers.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1274 · By land, 760 km (the way is a guess)
Lop, the town Marco puts at the edge of the great desert, is probably today's Ruoqiang (Charkhlik). Caravans rested there a week and loaded a month's food before setting out to cross the sands.
“The length of this Desert is so great that ’tis said it would take a year and more to ride from one end of it to the other. And here, where its breadth is least, it takes a month to cross it.”Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1274 · By land, 570 km (the way is a guess)
A month across the desert brought them to Shazhou, today's Dunhuang, at the edge of the province Marco calls Tangut. Until here they had travelled mostly among Muslims; now they entered a mainly Buddhist land.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1275 · By land, 2,000 km (the way is a guess)
By Suzhou, Ganzhou and Ningxia they came to Kublai Khan's summer palace at Shangdu, in 1275 or perhaps 1274, and gave him the Pope's letters and the oil from Jerusalem. Kublai welcomed young Marco into his service.
“Their journey back to the Kaan occupied a good three years and a half, owing to the bad weather and severe cold that they encountered.”Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1275 – c. 1290 · By land, 270 km
For some seventeen years the Polos served Kublai, whose capital was Khanbaliq, in today's Beijing. Marco says he was sent on missions across the empire, to Yunnan, to Champa in 1285 and to India; scholars still argue over how high he rose and whether he saw all he describes.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1291 · By land, 1,800 km (the way is a guess)
Kublai at last let them go, as escorts of the lady Kököchin, chosen as a bride for Arghun, the Mongol ruler of Persia. Their fleet of junks sailed from Zayton late in 1290 or early in 1291; Yule put it early in 1292.
“And I assure you that for one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there come a hundred such, aye and more too, to this haven of Zayton; for it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.”Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1291 · By sea, 4,000 km
After some three months at sea the fleet reached Sumatra, which Marco calls Java the Less, and lay five months in the kingdom of Samara, today's Samudra, waiting for the winds to let it sail on.
“And in that kingdom Messer Marco Polo was detained five months by the weather, which would not allow of his going on.”Who held this place then: Samudera Pasai Sultanate
c. 1292 · By sea, 2,300 km (the way is a guess)
Across the Bay of Bengal they probably came round Ceylon to Maabar, the south-east coast of India, which Marco describes at length. Their ports of call are not told; Yule thought they touched Ceylon and Kayal, and waited out the next monsoon at one of India's ports.
Who held this place then: Pandya Empire
c. 1293 · By sea, 3,300 km (the way is a guess)
After eighteen more months on the Indian seas they landed at Hormuz, probably learning there that Arghun had died. Of the six hundred people who had sailed, besides the crews, only eighteen were left by one manuscript, eight by another.
Who held this place then: Mongol Empire
c. 1294 · By land, 1,700 km (the way is a guess)
They gave the lady to Arghun's son Ghazan, who married her, and stayed some months at the court of Arghun's brother Gaykhatu, probably at Tabriz, Yule thought. When they took their leave, Kököchin wept.
“And when the three Ambassadors took leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she wept for sorrow at the parting.”Who held this place then: Ilkhanate
c. 1295 · By land, 660 km (the way is a guess)
Gaykhatu's golden tablets of authority gave them horses, food and often two hundred riders as escort across his lands to Trebizond on the Black Sea. On the way, Ramusio's text says, they heard that Kublai had died.
Who held this place then: Empire of Trebizond (nearby)
c. 1295 · By sea, 980 km
From Trebizond they sailed to Constantinople, the city Niccolò and Maffeo had left in 1260 on their first journey east. Yule thought they may have stayed there a while.
Who held this place then: Byzantine Empire (nearby)
1295 · By sea, 2,400 km
By Negropont they came home to Venice in 1295, after twenty-four years. A few years later, in a Genoese prison, Marco told his travels to Rustichello da Pisa, who wrote them down as the book now called The Travels of Marco Polo.
“Having left Kiacatu they travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295 of Christ’s Incarnation.”Who held this place then: Republic of Venice (nearby)