Marco Polo Bridge otherwise referred to as Lugo and thrown across the river Yangding. Bridge Located 14 kilometers from the city center of Beijing, Tiananmen.

Under the name of Marco Polo Bridge it became known after the great Italian traveler, wrote about it in his blog a small note with the words, full of admiration. Lugo - one of the oldest stone bridges mnogoarochnyh held in Beijing. Its construction was started in 1189 and completed in 1192. Later, in 1698, the bridge was reconstructed and updated.

Its length is 267 meters and a width of the bridge about 10 meters. Support bridge carried eleven stone pillars. A little to the side of the bridge there are two stone stelae, and on one of them there is an inscription that tells that this building was rebuilt during the reign of the imperial Qing Dynasty, in the 37th year of the reign of Kangxi (ie in 1698). On the second stele well seen a vivid example of calligraphic inscriptions. The text is very short, says "Morning moon over the meadow." All columns set in stone lion, and the total number of columns - 281.

Lions have an unusual feature - a large hides a little that can be located on the back, in the legs, under the belly or mane. People tried several times to count how many lions just in quantity, but each time the results were different - about 480. However, according to surviving documents, the columns were initially 627 lions.

Poses and age of all lions are different. Most of the lions were delivered during the reign of the Ming Dynasty and Qing distance. But some of the columns were before - in the time of the Yuan Dynasty, and the oldest - during the reign of Jin, but they have very little.

From the east entrance to the bridge is protected fortress wanping fortress, which has only two gates - western and eastern. Marco Polo Bridge starts from the western gate of the fortress.