Retracing Marco Polo’s Footsteps

[DickZ]

Retracing Marco Polo’s Footsteps
Part 1

Way back in my early days, I read the fascinating story of Marco Polo’s explorations to the Orient in the thirteenth century. This story stuck with me, and I decided that when I got old enough to retire and had lots of extra time on my hands, I would set out on a journey to follow Marco’s path as he wended his way from his native Venice to what is now Beijing, and back home again. His path included both sea and overland elements, including the fabled Silk Road. Since I was in the Navy during my earlier life, I have already seen lots of the sea, but I was particularly interested in retracing at least part of the exotic Silk Road.

Anyway, now that I’m retired, I developed a craving to see as much of what Marco Polo saw as would be possible today. I realized that there were limitations on what might be the same today as it was back in 1271, when his journey began. Progress marches on relentlessly, and over large spans of time, almost all things change. Despite this sobering fact, in 2010 I met with my travel agent again – he was the same travel agent who helped me plan my trip to Paris in 2006, my visit to Holland in 2007, my journey to Spain in 2008, and my trek through India in 2009, all of which are described here in LitNet. Working together, and using one of the more authoritative accounts of Marco Polo’s adventures, we made a map to help us plan my voyage.

Now if you ever studied Marco Polo during your schooldays, you might share my enthusiasm about this trip, and you too might be interested in exploring some of the places where it all happened. Or on the other hand, you might care nothing at all about Marco Polo or the Silk Road, but you still might just want to know what it’s like in Venice and China, or maybe in some of the places in between. In either case, I hope I can convince you to come along for the tour.

I was very anxious to dive into the adventures my travel agent was describing because I like to learn some new things every now and then – things I can’t learn by exchanging several hundred moronic text messages every day with other other people because we can’t seem to find anything better to do, or by checking up on what important stuff is now posted on Facebook like my cousin’s friend’s mother-in-law’s picture of her cat coming out of her litterbox, or by watching any of the current mind-stimulating television shows like The Big Bang Theory and The Biggest Loser, or even by flying to Amsterdam to see the Semi-Demi-Finals of the Women’s Heavyweight Wrestling Championship matches. I think someone recently made Wii versions of Electro-Magnetic Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy. Aldous Huxley would be shocked if he could see how rapidly we are accelerating our journey toward his Brave New World.

Marco was born in Venice on 1254, at the time this city-state was a great commercial power and its harbor was teeming with activity of loading and unloading exotic cargoes. Here are some sights of the harbor today, some of which actually existed even in Marco’s time. The most prominent landmark is Saint Mark’s Basilica, or as the Italians say, Basilica di San Marco. But don’t make the same mistake I made, by figuring that the Marco in the name of the church has anything to do with Marco Polo, because I found out it’s actually named for another Marco.

While the current structure had a few predecessors, this one was completed in 1094, so it was already there when Marco Polo started his historic journey. Enhancements have been added over the years, but it is basically the same as it was in the thirteenth century. Here’s a view of Piazza San Marco, or Saint Mark’s Square.

http://venice-guide.com/Venice_San_Marco_Square.jpg

Here’s a suggestion for getting the maximum effect from the pictures – none of which I took – they’re all on the internet. You have to read the entire suggestion before you start doing anything, or you’ll get yourself stuck and won’t know how to get out of it. The F11 key at the top of your keyboard is a toggle switch that will bounce you back and forth between full screen and normal view. If you hit it once, while viewing a picture, it will give you a full screen display, which makes the pictures much better. But you have to hit F11 a second time to return to a normal display, so you can then close the current picture and return to the story. Don’t hit F11 until you understand that you will have to hit F11 a second time to get out of the full screen display mode. Try that approach – again, hit F11 once for full screen, and then hit F11 a second time to return to normal display.

Or even better, but it might depend on your computer’s operating system and your browser, so keep the above method in mind, just in case this doesn’t work on your computer. After hitting F11 the first time and going to full screen, when you’re ready to close the full screen picture, move your cursor to the top right corner of your screen. The top toolbar should re-appear – at least it does on my machine – and you can close the picture by clicking on the X in the top right corner. In this way, you don’t even have to bother with hitting F11 every time – at least until you’re finished with the part of the story you’ve been reading. You keep getting full screen displays, which you can close by positioning your cursor to the top of your screen and making the toolbar re-appear.

Sometimes it takes a few seconds for the toolbar to re-appear, so don't give up too quickly. But if you wait a while and the toolbar doesn't re-appear, just hit F11 again.

Here’s the façade viewed from a little closer:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4tJBXSp73jk/UHrvI6pR6iI/AAAAAAAAC24/Rm2HtUG4sig/s1600/IMG_1000.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JqD_tziX90A/Tj6wqP3tLpI/AAAAAAAABQY/o5jzGj2ca1U/s1600/Venice%2BBasilica%2Bde%2BSan%2BMarco.JPG

http://images.travelpod.com/tripwow/photos/ta-00aa-882e-4d41/basilica-san-marco-venice-italy+1152_12865778819-tpfil02aw-9361.jpg

The architectural style of the basilica is Byzantine, and accordingly, it has lots of Byzantine mosaics. The wealth accumulated by the city-state – it was the wealthiest in Europe during Marco Polo’s era – allowed the builders to spring for many impressive features that lesser places couldn’t afford. Lots of columns, friezes, and other pieces were brought back from the east by the ships carrying their treasures to Venice. The opulent building is also informally known as Chiesa d’Oro, or the Church of Gold. Here’s an example of the mosaics used in the building, this one being the Saint Alipius lunette:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Basilica_San_Marco_Venice_Mosaic.jpg

And another mosaic, this one in what’s called the Creation Dome – ignore the red numbers which aren’t really there, but provide a legend for highlighting more detailed information than we’re going to get into here:

http://www.museumplanet.com/image/venice/sm/Genesis___Creation_Dome_Mosaic___.jpg

There are four horses high up on the façade, which you might have noticed in an earlier shot. Contrary to what you’re probably thinking, they have no relation whatsoever to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They came from Constantinople back during the Fourth Crusade, and were installed in 1254, the year of Marco Polo’s birth. Here’s a closer view of them – actually the ones you now see on the exterior are replicas, with the originals being stored indoors for purposes of preservation:

http://www.lessing-photo.com/p3/150404/15040446.jpg

Here’s a nice virtual tour of St. Mark’s Square:

http://www.associazionepiazzasanmarco.it/en/index.php?lang=2

The Doge’s Palace is built in the Gothic style, and we’ll take a peek at it, but it wasn’t there when Marco was, as it didn’t come along until the fourteenth century. It has on display some paintings by Tinoretto and Veronese. The Doge was the chief executive of Venice, who was supposed to have his office for life. However, the theory wasn’t always actually carried out, and many Doges were pushed out for political reasons – just like we often do today with many of our current-world political figures.

Here’s what the palace looks like when viewed from the harbor:

http://blog.venezialodging.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Doges-Palace-.jpg

The Porta della Carta is the ceremonial entrance to the building. The center statue is of San Marco, and there are figures representing the Cardinal Virtues.

http://www.tours-venice-italy.com/venice-events/sites/default/files/images/Doges_Palace_08.jpg

And here’s where the Doges did their dancing, one of them even inventing the Doge’s Twist, which was a thousand years ahead of its time:

http://noodlesensevilla.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/doges-palace-venice1.jpg

The far wall in the picture above is a painting called Paradise, by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto. Here's a closer look at this painting:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1AJIE7G1DnQ/TRP6pFS7ECI/AAAAAAAAAYU/UhDdYFWD6Hk/s1600/Paradise.jpg

We will continue with more sights of Venice in our next episode.

[DickZ]

Retracing Marco Polo’s Footsteps
Part 2

The Grand Canal is about 2.4 miles in length, and on its banks are 170 structures dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centures, so some of them were even there in Marco Polo’s time. Funded by the wealth being accumulated in commerce, they were made to be quite elegant, mainly to showcase their owners’ prosperity.

A painter from the eighteenth century left us a number of exquisite oil paintings centering on the canal. His nickname by which he is remembered was Canaletto, which means little canal, because of the one-tracked nature of his works. We’ll look at a few of these – but remember, while these were all produced centuries after Marco Polo, the scenes they depict were much the same as they were during Marco’s life.

Here is the Grand Canal and the Church of the Salute:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Canaletto_-_The_Grand_Canal_and_the_Church_of_the_Salute.jpg

His painting Return of the Bucentoro to the Molo on Ascension Day:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Canaletto_Return_of_the_Bucentoro_to_the_Molo_on_A scension_Day%2C_1732._Royal_Collection._Windsor..j pg

And the Entrance to the Grand Canal:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Canaletto_-_The_Entrance_to_the_Grand_Canal,_Venice_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

There are lots of public domain photographs of the canal today available on the internet, but they don’t really compare that well with the paintings of Canaletto. One exception to this general statement is this panoramic view from the top of the San Giorgio Maggiore Basilica's campanile:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Veneto_Venezia1_tango7174.jpg

We will now proceed to a couple of well-known bridges. There are lots of bridges in Venice, since the city is a collection of islands, but examining each of them quickly becomes tedious. We’ll focus on only two of them – the Rialto Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs. Besides, most of the bridges in use today came along well after Marco Polo’s time.

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest bridge that crosses the Grand Canal, but that’s not quite as distinctive as it first sounds because there are only four bridges in that group. It serves as the dividing line between the city’s districts of San Marco and San Polo, he latter of which is named for our hero. The current stone version was built in the late sixteenth century. An earlier wooden version was actually designed as a drawbridge which would lift up to allow the passage of tall ships.

Here’s a distant shot, so you can see the whole bridge:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Rialto_bridge_2011.jpg

And here’s a closer view so you can see some of the intricate details:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Ponte_di_Rialto_%28particolare%29.jpg

The bridge features shops along both sides, just like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, which is discussed in my story A Grand Tour at http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=32270.

And here’s an oil painting by Caneletto, whom we discussed earlier for his paintings of the Grand Canal:

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/canaletto/the-rialto-bridge-from-the-south

The Bridge of Sighs is an enclosed structure of white limestone, built early in the seventeenth century, long after Marco Polo had passed on. It connects the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace with the city’s prison. Lord Byron gave the bridge its name, as in his mind, prisoners would sigh as they saw the bridge on the way to their cells.

Here’s what the bridge looks like:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Ponte_dei_sospiri_bridge_of_sighs_venice.jpg

And in an oil painting, the sun can strike it a little more effectively than it can in a photograph:

http://www.toddwilliamsfineart.com/paintings/Euro_BridgeofSighsVenice.jpg

Marco Polo’s House is near the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal. The only indication that it was Marco’s house is a small wall plaque that says so. The house is now a small hostel situated atop a very unglamorous pizzeria.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/humayunnapeerzaada/2630070231/

The Teatro La Fenice is the opera house of Venice. It is interesting to note that the name Fenice actually means Phoenix and has nothing to do with Venice. Like our American Phoenix in Arizona, this Italian Phoenix refers to something that has burned and has then risen from the ashes. That is exactly what has happened to the Venice Opera House over the centuries – it has burned to the ground and has been rebuilt twice since 1774, with the most recent one being in 1996. Here is the very glorious interior:

http://teejaygee.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/dsc02376.jpg

In our next episode, we will leave Marco Polo’s hometown and begin following the path of his voyage.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Hello DickZ,

"Marco Polo" caught my eye last night just before I hit the sack.
I am currently reading The Travels of Marco Polo along with two other books.
In fact I've been plodding my way through MP for at least two months now(work/ family)

Anyhow, I'm at Book II, Chapter/ Part 68; Of the Noble and Magnificent City of Kin-sai
My copy is from the "old" family library; The Orion Press/ New York..." With 25 illustrations in full color from 14th centuray manuscript in the Bibliotheque Mationale Paris". Oddly, there is no copyright date. Judging from the paper and condition of the cover, I would say 1950's.

Your efforts are appreciated.
Now that I've spotted your thread, I'll take some time to get caught up.

[DickZ]

Retracing Marco Polo's Footsteps
Part 3

The 17-year old youngster Marco Polo set out on his voyage to the Orient in 1271, along with his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo. While it was Marco’s first voyage, his father and uncle had previously been to what is now China.

The first leg of this journey was by sea, across the Mediterranean to the port of Acre in what is now Israel. You can see Acre at the left side of the map here – not far from Jerusalem. The red line shows his path – we will refer to this map frequently as we trace his itinerary.

http://www.grandesexploradoresbbva.com/imagenes/marcoPolo/tb_mapa_marco_polo2.jpg

If you read the novel Exodus by Leon Uris, you might remember Acre as the town where a major prison was maintained in the Palestine region. This was the prison where Ari ben Canaan’s uncle Akiva was held in 1947, and from which he was extracted by a bold commando raid on the prison. This of course has nothing to do with Marco Polo, but is just mentioned as a matter of general interest.

Here is the Ottoman citadel which still graces Acre and was used as the prison from which Uncle Akiva was temporarily ‘liberated.’

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x6zhKPbePTs/SxPQuO_mMPI/AAAAAAAAABc/GPt915CHXYw/s1600/acre.jpg

The Polos followed up their seaborne leg with an overland jaunt on camels to Jerusalem, where they were able to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is thought to be the place where Jesus was buried after his crucifiction, and from which he ascended to heaven. This church and lots of other sights are more fully described in my story A Grand Tour, which includes Jerusalem along with lots of European cities, a story that is located right here in the LitNet forum at http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?32270-A-Grand-Tour

Here is an exterior view of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre.jpg

From Jerusalem, the Polos proceeded to a place they called Turcomania, in what we now call modern Anatolia. Here they were able to view Mount Ararat from a distance, this being the generally-accepted place where Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood. They then went to Mosul, which is now in Iraq and which you’ve probably heard mentioned occasionally in recent times, what with all the activity going on in this part of the world these days. It stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, and gives the fabric muslin its name.

Some people think the Polos went from Mosul to nearby Baghdad, but others are not so sure. Apparently the original travelogue that Marco set down in writing is not crystal clear on this subject. They then stopped at two towns justifiably famous for their beautiful Persian rugs, namely Tabriz and Kerman. None of the accounts of the journey indicate whether they bought any nice Tabriz or Kerman carpets to adorn their homes back in Venice.

Here is a sample of the Tabriz pattern:

http://nazmiyalantiquerugs.com/antique-rugs/antique-product-type/antique-tabriz-persian-rug-7993/

And the Kerman:

http://nazmiyalantiquerugs.com/articles/antique-kirman-rugs-vs-kashan-carpets/

From Kerman, they continued onward to the Persian Gulf port of Hormuz, which is now in Iran. By the way, here’s what his camel cavalcade looked like:

http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/marco-polos-caravan.jpg

You can see Hormuz on the Persian Gulf in the map below (same as the one we looked at before, and to which we’ll frequently refer again) which showed their route to Acre. Note that Hormuz lies right between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

http://www.grandesexploradoresbbva.com/imagenes/marcoPolo/tb_mapa_marco_polo2.jpg

They wanted to take another ship from Hormuz and proceed directly to China by water, which was much easier and safer than the overland route, but the ships available for such a voyage at that time and place were in no condition to make the voyage. They made the rest of the trip on dry land.

They continued by camel across the deserts and mountains of Asia, along what has been dubbed the Silk Road. This was a network of trade routes that connected Europe with parts of Asia, and over which lots of Chinese silk passed. The Silk Road actually dates back to about 200 BC, although it got much more extensive use hundreds of years later. Lots of historians believe that the Black Death – the bubonic plague that hit Europe so hard in the fourteenth century – was carried by traders from China to Europe over the Silk Road.

Proceeding from Hormuz to China along the Silk Road, they stopped in several places that we won’t address individually because it becomes rather laborious for an overview like this – no great newsworthy events happened at any of these eight cities. It took them three years to reach China.

In the next episode, we will go over the Polos’ arrival at the court of Kublai Khan in Shangdu, a place which gave rise to William Taylor Coleridge’s great poem Xanadu, starting out with:


In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

[DickZ]

Retracing Marco Polo's Footsteps
Part 4

I must apologize for the long gap between Parts 3 and 4 – but I’ve been spending most of my time learning to use my iPhone to take pictures of my delectable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, as well as my delicious macaroni and cheese concoctions. Apparently the nine-month gap between episodes didn’t bother anyone terribly – nobody has been knocking down my door asking “Where’s Part 4 of the Marco Polo voyage?”

I still have to spend lots of time preparing my food for the pictures – so much so that by the time I eat my sandwiches, they are really quite stale. And the once-melted cheese among the macaroni hardens to make the mixture the same consistency as old bubble gum. But that’s a small price to pay for knowing that I’m giving people the biggest thrills of their lifetimes with these pictures, because they can’t come up with anything better to do with their time than look at pictures from other jerks, such as yours truly, who also have time to burn taking pointless photos. It’s pretty hard to believe humanity has sunk to such depths, but it obviously has, and we seem to be sinking further as each week passes.

By the time I take the pictures of my food, and get the pictures out to people who actually look at them, and look at what everybody else had for lunch, then it’s time for dinner and the whole crazy cycle starts again. So far I have refused to include breakfast pictures, only because I’m so pooped out from having to deal with lunch and dinner from the previous day. And so nine months just miraculously slipped by between episodes of my story, because I can’t do all that stuff with all those pictures, and write my story at the same time.

Anyway, back to the story. The travelers in Marco Polo’s party continued by camel across the deserts and mountains of Asia. More than three years after leaving Venice, they finally reached Kublai Khan's summer palace in Shangdu in 1274. Now maybe you’ve heard of Kublai Khan’s magnificent residence in the form of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem, but you may not have realized that Coleridge based his poem on Marco Polo’s description of the place. Now I had always thought that Coleridge got the idea for the lines In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree. . . either from Olivia Newton-John’s catchy song Xanadu, or from the classic movie Citizen Kane, but now I’ve learned that he apparently he got them from Marco Polo instead. It’s a good thing I do research on things like this so I don’t get overwhelmed with misinformation.

They didn’t have tweeting back in Marco Polo’s day, but he did the equivalent to what we call tweeting today, to get a description of Xanadu to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It’s a good thing they didn’t have tweeting back then exactly like what we have today, because then Coleridge would have missed the tweet that would have come out 500 years before he was ready to write his poem. Old-fashioned tweets took about that long to reach their intended targets. It’s amazing they were able to get anything done back then without high-speed Twitter. I don’t even know how they kept up with the important activities of their celebrities back then the way we can keep up with what Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan did yesterday.

Anyway, Coleridge was always too stoned from heavy doses of opium to travel to Kublai Khan’s palace himself, so he had to rely on Marco Polo’s low-speed tweet to give him the picture that Coleridge then turned into such majestic words. Here are some scenes of Xanadu and its surroundings, remembering that we would have none of these were it not for Marco Polo.

http://asad123.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/xanadu.png

http://www.hist.umn.edu/hist1011/assignments/explorers/images/xanadu.jpg

This place was so lavish that the Polos stayed here in China until 1292, which was 21 years after they had left from Venice. I don’t think they originally intended to stay away from home for so long, but things just seemed to work out that way. I don’t think their modest residence back in Venice could really compare to Xanadu, which probably contributed heavily to their staying in China so much longer than they planned to. The palace’s walls were covered in gold and silver, and the dining hall could accommodate 6,000 people all at the same time.

But they didn’t spend their entire visit sitting around enjoying the luxuries of Xanadu – they were on the road for long stretches checking out other parts of Kublai Khan’s territory. During the course of this visit, Polo learned all about the use of coal to serve as a fuel and to cause all kinds of pollution, and the use of paper currency instead of having to lug bagfuls of coins over your shoulder every time you went out shopping. Marco described the coal as “rocks that burn like logs,” but as it turned out, coal was already known and used in Europe – just not by Marco.

I couldn’t find out exactly when they started expressing their desire to return home, but whenever it was, Kublai Khan refused to let them leave. Finally in the afore-mentioned 1292, one of the Khan’s favorite relatives who was living in Persia, where he was sitting on the throne, decided to take a Chinese wife. Kublai Khan allowed to Polos to accompany the wedding party to Persia, and this turned out to be the way they finally extricated themselves from having to spend the rest of their lives in Xanadu.

Marco’s journal didn’t go into much detail about the return voyage that brought them all back to Venice. But the journey took two years, so maybe we should be more appreciative of our airplanes now, instead of belly-aching about how terrible it is to be cooped up with hardly any legroom for a four-hour flight. The Polos made it back to Venice in 1295, having set out from there in 1271. Five of those years were taken up in travel.

Our final episode will focus on Genoa, the city in which Marco spent three years in captivity starting in 1296. Genoa and Venice were fierce rivals in maritime commerce, and it was in the course of one of these cities’ great battles that Marco was taken into custody by the Genoans. It was during his confinement that his story was recorded, to be passed on to all of us.

[DickZ]

Retracing Marco Polo's Footsteps
Part 5

After spending just one year with his family in Venice upon returning from his 24-year journey to the Orient, Marco went off to war for his home city-state. Venice, on the east coast of Italy, had a long-standing rivalry in foreign trade with Genoa, another city-state situated on the west coast. It was kind of like today’s Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees rivalry, but modern baseball players rarely go to actual war with weapons, unless you consider a baseball bat to be a weapon. Most of the time in the baseball conflicts, action is confined to hurling verbal insults at each other. In the Venice-Genoa rivalry, there were actual shooting wars. Marco was captured by the Genoans, probably in 1296, but there are differing accounts of even this relatively straightforward and simple fact.

While he was in prison, he had to find something to occupy his time because they didn’t have Facebook back then. Having Facebook would have allowed him to spend his entire three-year prison term keeping tabs on the exploits of various celebrities of his day, like lots of people do nowadays, and these people today aren’t even in jail like Marco was. So he dictated the details of all his travels, as best as he could remember, to a cellmate by the name of Rustichello da Pisa. The document that Rustichello produced gave the world a very good idea of what happened during Marco’s travels, although other accounts have surfaced over the years that provide some contradictory material.

While Marco was in prison, he didn’t have the luxury of sightseeing throughout the streets of Genoa because he had to stay in his cell dictating the story of his travels to Rustichello, but we Lit Netters have that privilege since we aren’t in the prison cell with those two. So as long as we’re here in Genoa, which is now the largest seaport in Italy, we’ll take a peek at some of the unique and beautiful sights here.

Some of Genoa’s architectural masterpieces have been placed on the World Heritage Sites List, so we’ll look at these first.

La Strada Nuove is another member in a long list of poorly-named places all over the world. It literally means the new street, but that’s a little misleading since the street dates back to the late sixteenth century. So it’s just like the Pont Neuf in Paris, a name which makes it sound like a new bridge that was completed within the last six months, despite the fact that construction was finished in 1603.

La Strada Nuove, which features a number of palaces called Palazzi dei Rolli, was conceived in 1576, and represents the first European example of an urban development project decreed by a central planning authority. Here is an overview of La Strada Nuove:

http://gb.fotolibra.com/images/previews/740385-le-strade-nuove-genova-liguria-italy.jpeg

And a closer view:

http://www.youliguria.it/Public/images/I%20Rolli/rolli_14.jpg

A closeup of the façade of the Palazzo Belimbau, which was built as a private residence in 1594 – it was donated in 2000 by the family who owned it all those years to the University of Genoa:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Genova-palazzo_Belimbau.jpg

Napoleon held Pope Pius VII as a prisoner here for a short while in 1815. Of course it wasn’t long afterwards that Napoleon became a prisoner himself.

And a couple of views of the nearby Piazza di Ferrari. First a nice wide-angle shot, followed by a closer look at the centerpiece, which is the Borsa, or stock exchange. This is where Genoa’s equivalent of the United States Occupy Wall Street demonstrators meet to voice their demands that they all be given high-paying jobs despite their inability to do anything particularly useful:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Genau-piazza-di-ferrari.jpg

http://paradiseintheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/genoa-city.jpg

Piazza della Vittoria, or Victory Square, features an arch commemorating Italy’s fallen soldiers from the Great War, which was later re-named World War I.

http://www.lavocedellisola.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Genova-piazza-della-Vittoria.jpg

The Palazzo Reale, which doesn’t mean the Real Palace but rather the Royal Palace, and which dates back to the seventeenth century, serves today as a museum. It is likely the largest architectural complex of its vintage to have retained its original interiors, including the paintings on display here.

Here are two views of the the Palazzo’s exterior:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Palazzo_Reale_-_Genova.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Palazzo_reale_genoa.JPG

The Palazzo features a Hall of Mirrors – and while it doesn’t quite match its namesake at Versailles, it’s still pretty nice to look at:

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5j3xympzk1r1dcs8o1_r1_1280.jpg

http://static.squarespace.com/static/52ed72fae4b00521a9aa9d5b/t/533dac6ee4b0907609ad96f5/1396550779602/

The Bank of San Giorgio, with a Palazzo that is a bit garish serving as its main headquar-ters, dates back to 1407, is among the oldest banks in the world, and has played an impor-tant role in the city’s prosperity since the middle of the fifteenth century:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Palazzo_San_Georgio_Genova_W.jpg

As was mentioned earlier, Genoa is the largest seaport today in Italy, so it would be appropriate to take a look at a lighthouse that guides ships to the port. Here is the Lanterna (which of course means lantern), that was built in 1543. While they used to rely on fire to light the way for ships, now the lighthouse operates with modern electricity.

Here’s a nice view of the lighthouse at dusk, apparently just before the light gets turned on:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Lanterna_di_Genova_-_Strano.jpg

And mainly to demonstrate to any doubters out there that the lighthouse does in fact light up:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Lanterna_di_Genova_27-09-2011.JPG

Genoa’s main railroad station for long-distance travel is called Piazza Principe or Genova Principe. Another station, Genova Brignole, is actually larger, but specializes mainly in commuter traffic. The station was completed in 1860. Here is what it looks like:

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/stazione-principe-genoa-italy-march-heavy-vehicle-pedestrian-traffic-front-piazza-main-railway-station-41286211.jpg

And here is the main entrance:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Genova_staz_Principe_ingresso.jpg

Near the railroad station is a statue commemorating hometown-boy-made-good Christopher Columbus, who made his name at sea in a transportation mode that preceded the railroads by four centuries:

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/62300/62313/62313_colum_statue_lg.gif

The Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, which my cat Eleanor mistakenly thought had something to do with cats, is actually the Cathedral of Genoa, named for Saint Lawrence. The cathedral replaced an earlier version which dated from the fifth or sixth century AD. The current version was begun in the twelfth century, but it wasn’t really completed in the seventeenth century. They weren’t in such a hurry back then – an attitude that might be beneficial to some of us today.

The work was financed by all the commercial trading that Genoa engaged in, as the city was in hot competition with Marco Polo’s Venice in bringing goods from distant lands over a long period.

The facade from a distance:

http://www.genova.chiesacattolica.it/genova/allegati/362159/arte_genova_001_cattedrale_san_lorenzo.jpg

And a closeup view of the facade:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/San_Lorenzo_Genova_01.jpg

The glorious nave:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Genova-cattedrale_di_san_lorenzo-navata_maggiore.jpg

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/9913234.jpg

There are lots more interesting sights in Genoa, but I’ll just invite you to explore on your own if you’re interested.

Well, that’s about it for my Marco Polo retrospective, and if you were courageous enough to reach this point, I’ll say THANK YOU for taking the time to read it all.

THE END

And if you got this far, maybe you would consider also looking over one or more of the following tours, all of which are right here in the LitNet Forum. As others have pointed out, these tours allow you to visit lots of places without having to pay a nickel, and without having to go through airport security patdowns either – a double bonus:

A Grand Tour (tour of Moscow, St. Petersburg, London, Rome, Jerusalem, and several other cities, with pictures, although some of the links to pictures are now obsolete, and can’t be updated as LitNet limits the time when editing is allowed.)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?32270-A-Grand-Tour&highlight=

Visiting India’s Sunny Clime (tour of India, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?62508-Visiting-India-s-Sunny-Clime&highlight=

The City of Lights (tour of Paris, with pictures and videos)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?45227-The-City-of-Lights&highlight=

Through Spain by Train (tour of Spain, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?56574-Through-Spain-by-Train&highlight=

A Dutch Treat (tour of Holland, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?54574-A-Dutch-Treat&highlight=

A Capital Tour (tour of Washington, DC, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?37597-A-Capital-Tour&highlight=

It’s a Wonderful Town (tour of New York City, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?43123-It’s-a-Wonderful-Town&highlight=

The City of Brotherly Love (tour of Philadelphia, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?40972-The-City-of-Brotherly-Love&highlight=

The City by the Bay (tour of San Francisco, with pictures and videos)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?40239-The-City-by-the-Bay&highlight=

Memories of San Antonio (tour and recollections of San Antonio, Texas, with pictures)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?38998-Memories-of-San-Antonio&highlight=
[Note that for this one, a website containing many of the pictures was subsequently taken down so those pictures aren’t there. I have an Adobe file of the story with the pictures in lieu of troublesome links, if anyone would like to see it that way. Just let me know by Private Message if you would like one sent to you by e-mail.]

Or maybe even this series of short stories, that started out by finding romance and eating hot dogs at a Washington Nationals baseball game, and kept going from there. These stories are all in the LitNet Forum:

My Baseball Scorecard (first in series of four stories)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?33253-My-Baseball-Scorecard&highlight=

Time to Go Shopping (second in series of four stories)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?33465-Time-to-Go-Shopping&highlight=


Weekend in Boston (third in series of four stories)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?33953-Weekend-in-Boston&highlight=

The Dinner Guest (fourth in series of four stories)
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?36809-The-Dinner-Guest&highlight=

Or the serious story of my uncle’s journal that he wrote just before World War II describing his experiences in the Navy:
The Journal
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?31803-The-Journal&highlight=

Or a serious story about Jewish immigrants who came to the USA in the early twentieth century:
Two Crossings
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?30993-Two-Crossings&highlight=

Or a story about one of my Navy cruises to the Mediterranean, including pictures of Athens, Istanbul, and Naples, as well as several other places:
The Cruise
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?34476-The-Cruise&highlight=