• Italian Explorer and storyteller Marco Polo wrote about his traveling experiences on the Silk Road in his book Il Milione (The Travels of Marco Polo). On his 24-year journey, Polo traveled farther into Asia than any previous Western explorer.

• Fast Facts

  1. Lifespan: 1254-1324
  2. Lived for 17 years in China
  3. Employed by Kublai Khan as the Governor of Yangzhou
  4. Wrote The Travels of Marco Polo while in prison
  5. Polo was 17 years old when he began the journey

• Quotes

  1. "When a man is riding through this desert by night and for some reason - falling asleep or anything else - he gets separated from his companions and wants to rejoin them, he hears spirit voices talking to him as if they were his companions, sometimes even calling him by name. Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again, and many travelers have got lost and died because of this."
  2. "I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice."

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Marco Polo | China | Kublai Khan | Silk Road | Niccolo Polo | The Travels of Marco Polo | Mongol Empire

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