I'm doing an exercise I've found here:
  http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/tests/1part2.htm

This is an excerpt:

Determined to get these birds back, he runs away from Samarkand and
joins a group of people travelling to the country centred on the city of
Karakorum, where the great Mongol chief Genghis Khan was then based.


And here is the question:

Where does most of the story take place?
			
                         1 in Samarkand
			2 in Karakorum
			3 on the way to Karakorum
			4 in the Tian Shan mountains


"2" is the correct answer.
But I was not able to choose between 2 and 3 because I translated it as:
"...lascia Samarcanda per unirsi ad un gruppo di persone in viaggio
*verso la regione intorno alla città* di Karakorum"

What is wrong with my interpretation?

Because there is certainly something wrong as I can't deduce if the
story takes place in Karakorum, or on the way to Karakorum.
Maybe there is "something from the text that escapes me"(questa mi suona
malissimo, vorrei rendere "che mi sfugge").