In the first episode of his series tracing the story of the most famous trade route in history, Dr. Sam Willis starts in Venice and explores how its Renaissance architecture and art has been shaped by the East and by thousands of exchanges along the Silk Road.

Sam meets the last survivors of a race of traders, the Sogdians. In Samarkand and Bukhara, he discovers how the city's trading cultures sparked technical and artistic revolutions.

Sam explores Iran's past and how Persian culture spread east and west. In Istanbul Sam discovers a city once ruled through Silk and follows the maritime Silk Road to Venice.