
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


A Venetian teenager leaves home with two older relatives and a bag of letters from the Pope. Twenty four years later he comes back with a head full of Asia, a coat lined with jewels, and a story that will rewrite how Europe pictures the world.
We follow Marco Polo from Venice to Xanadu, through deserts that crack underfoot and courts where a wrong word can end you. We will hear how paper money moves an empire, how salt funds armies, and how a Mongol princess survives a murderous sea. We will wrestle with the skeptics, sort the facts from the fables, and listen for the man inside the legend.
No romance, no fairy dust, just a working merchant who learned to look, to listen, and to tell.
Bring your curiosity. Leave your certainty at the dock. The world he saw is closer than you think.
By Dave BowmanA Venetian teenager leaves home with two older relatives and a bag of letters from the Pope. Twenty four years later he comes back with a head full of Asia, a coat lined with jewels, and a story that will rewrite how Europe pictures the world.
We follow Marco Polo from Venice to Xanadu, through deserts that crack underfoot and courts where a wrong word can end you. We will hear how paper money moves an empire, how salt funds armies, and how a Mongol princess survives a murderous sea. We will wrestle with the skeptics, sort the facts from the fables, and listen for the man inside the legend.
No romance, no fairy dust, just a working merchant who learned to look, to listen, and to tell.
Bring your curiosity. Leave your certainty at the dock. The world he saw is closer than you think.