The Silk Roads

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£13.99

The Silk Roads is Paul Wilson’s Trailblazer guide to one of the most world-famous long distance trading routes across Asia. The Silk Roads historically linked the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea through a web of short routes and the author is one of the first to cover these routes in their entirety. The guide covers a range of routes, including a re-tracing of the Golden Road to Samarkand, following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Marco Polo and travelling the whole length of the Great Wall of China. There is detailed information on over 6000 miles of overland routes both by road and by rail.

The guide is structured in six main sections – Planning your Trip, The Silk Road, The Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan and the Karkorum Highway and China. Part 1 gives practical guidance on routes, costs and making bookings and advice about pre-trip preparations including vaccinations and health safeguards, travel insurance and background reading. A detailed history of the Silk Road is provided in Part 2, including biographical sketches of figures such as Alexander the Great and the coming of the Mongols. Detailed route descriptions are accompanied by 60 hand-drawn maps illustrating each route and there are also 51 city guides with maps providing information on where to stay, where to eat and what to see in each of the countries – Syria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and China – that the Silk Roads pass through. Appendices provide useful language phrases in Arabic, Farsi, Russian and Chinese.

About this series:
Trailblazer Guides are highly practical, informative and portable guides designed with the adventurous traveller in mind. They include trekking guides, rail guides, budget route guides and driving guides as well as guides to popular British walking destinations and adventurous world-wide destinations and activities. They are strong on practical information and also cultural background. The guides provide details of the best accommodation and eating options as well as advice on what's worth seeing and what's better to avoid. There is comprehensive background information on history, climate, food, and the people. Detailed sections are included on the environment, particularly in the trekking guides, each of which has a detailed Minimum Impact Trekking chapter.

According to The Sunday Times, ‘The Trailblazer series stands head, shoulders, waist and ankles above the rest. They are particularly strong on mapping.’