The Silk Road is one of the oldest trade routes in the world and actually consists of several “linked” routes that together form The Silk Road.

The Wandelgek himself visited Istanbul and Venice in 2001, both starting points of the Silk Road. In 2004, De Wandelgek traveled large parts of the Silk Road in Central Asia, starting in Kazakhstan and continuing via Xinjiang in China through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan.

The many sources I found almost all differ when it comes to showing what falls under the Silk Road and what does not. For example, there are sources that take Venice as a starting point, and others only start at Alexandria or Istanbul. Khiva and Konye Urgench are also mentioned by some sources and excluded by others. I do include them, especially because the Polo’s journey came very close to these two cities. There was a route that ran north around the Caspian Sea.

The full route runs from Istanbul in Turkey and from Venice and Alexandria in Italy to Xian in China: