Painting, poetry, dance, and music thrived in Xi’an, and l’art de vivre-the refined art of living-was an essential component of everyday existence. The famed Silk Road, the trade route that linked the Far East to Europe, started there in the second century BC and turned the city, then known as Chang’an, into a throbbing metropolis of nearly two million and an epicenter for culture and politics.
From 221 BC to AD 907, Xi’an served on and off as the capital of the vast Chinese empire. Xi’an, pronounced Shee-ahn, is one of China’s oldest cities, settled by humans since prehistoric times. DOWN THE DUSTY ROADS of Xi’an the motor scooters zoom, weaving around potholes and rickety bicycles, bip-bip-bipping their horns as they circle the city’s sixteenth-century bell tower.
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