His book charted the journey he made as a merchant from Venice to China and back again – spanning 24 years and tens of thousands of miles – plus his time in the employ of the leader of the Mongols, and described places, cultures, customs and peoples that, to Europeans, were new and so exotic that they seemed beyond belief.He was not the first European to travel to such far-off lands. He was not even the first in his family. Yet he ensured that his would be the name heard far and wide, and consequently remembered throughout history, by writing his experiences, memories and tales down.He described places, cultures, customs and peoples that, to Europeans, were new and so exotic that they seemed beyond beliefThe opportunity of getting it all on paper came about purely by chance. Marco Polo had returned from his travels in his forties, in the last years of the 13th century, to find the city state of Venice at war with Genoa. The Genoese captured him, but he was in luck – sharing his prison...
