As an Oxford undergraduate in the early 1960s, Stanley Johnson, along with two friends, embarked on an ambitious journey to retrace the steps of the 13th-century explorer Marco Polo. Their goal was to follow Polo’s legendary route from Venice to Beijing. Stanley’s new book, “In the Footsteps of Marco Polo,” begins with this adventurous expedition from over 60 years ago.
Guided by Marco Polo’s vivid descriptions in his renowned book “The Travels,” Stanley, Tim Severin, and Michael de Larrabeiti ventured through Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, inching closer to the Chinese border. Their aim was to traverse the Silk Road, mirroring the path taken centuries earlier by Marco Polo and his family—his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo.
Drawing from the detailed notes Stanley kept during the journey, the first part of the book captures the exhilarating sense of adventure felt by the three young men as they set out for the Orient. Despite their enthusiasm, they were unable to reach China, as the road through the Pamirs proved impassable by motorcycle.
Fast forward 62 years, and the story takes a new turn. In the second part of the book, Stanley recounts how he and his youngest son, Max, resumed Marco Polo’s trail in Far West China, beginning where Polo himself entered the country around 1272.
This modern adventure, documented in collaboration with Chinese television companies and the independent production company One Tribe TV, culminated in a film of Stanley and Max’s journey. The premiere is scheduled for July 3 at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair, London.
Stanley’s narrative is enriched by his own photographs, capturing the remarkable journey he and Max undertook. They traced Marco Polo’s steps from the High Pamirs to Kashgar in Xinjiang Province, across the Gobi Desert into Inner Mongolia, and finally to the Summer Palace of Kublai Khan in Xanadu, concluding their trek in Beijing.
The Polos spent over four years traveling from Venice to Beijing. In total, Marco Polo served the Great Khan in China for 17 years. Throughout their journey, Stanley and Max were continually amazed by the accuracy of Marco Polo’s observations, both along the route and within China itself.
Marco Polo’s detailed account of China during his time is of immense historical significance. Stanley notes that Polo is revered in China as a crucial bridge-builder between East and West. In this context, Stanley’s book—while being an informed, lively, and amusing chronicle of a personal dream realized—holds special relevance today.
Stanley Johnson, former MEP and Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, has worked for the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Commission in Brussels. He won the Newdigate prize for Poetry in 1962, the Greenpeace Prize and the RSPCA’s Richard Martin award in 1984, and the RSPB Medal and the WWF Leader of the Living Planet Award in 2015.
Between 2019 and 2023, he served as the International Ambassador for the Conservative Environment Network (CEN). He is currently President of the Gorilla Organisation, Chairman of GEDU-Global Education Advisory Board, and Adviser to the World Coastal Forum.
He has appeared in numerous reality television shows, including I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here and Celebrity Mastermind where his specialist topic was the works of Sophocles.
He is the author of 12 non-fiction works on environmental and demographic topics, two volumes of memoir and 11 novels, one of which – The Commissioner – was made into a film starring John Hurt.
‘In the Footsteps of Marco Polo’ is his 26th book.
Robin Hanbury-Tenison, OBE, author, explorer, environmental campaigner, and a founder of Survival International, writes:
‘Brilliantly crafted account from Stanley’s pen about following in Marco Polo’s footsteps through Europe and Asia to Beijing, China. Gripping stuff, full of politics, geography and humour.’
Marco Polo wasn’t just the man who (possibly) brought spaghetti, he was the most famous example of the way the Silk Road flourished during that extraordinary period when Great Khans, beginning with Genghis Khan himself, created a Pax Mongolica which enabled the interchange of goods, culture and ideas between East and West to flourish as never before or since.
There were lots of high points on this 4000 klm journey but the key, of course, was that we were visiting places and talking to people and doing things which, nowadays at least given the present trend of China-US-Europe relationships, are not so common.
We flew in hot-air balloons over Ganzu, we crossed the Yellow River on rafts made from inflated sheep-skins, we visited the Mausoleum of Genghis Ghan in Inner Mongolia , and a great Chinese winery in Ninxia. We visited night markets and day markets, played football against local teams in Kashgar, and attended Uighur concerts in Xinjiang In Beijing we amazingly had the Forbidden City to ourselves, and filmed on a last day on one of the remaining Yuan dynasty structures: the Bell Tower.
Back in 1961, I was determined to see the caves at Dunhuang where that great store of Buddhist scrolls had been found. Well, I had to wait over sixty years to do that, but I will forget Mogau Cave 17 where some 60,000 scrolls were found – and quite a number made their way to the British Museum and similar destinations. And we visited the sites made famous by the great early 20th century explorers, Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein for example whose work had inspired Tim Severin and me so long ago as we were planning that first Marco Polo trip.
And of course, as an environmentalist I have been inspired by the efforts China is making on the renewable energy front. I lost count of the number of wind turbines and solar panel fields we saw day after day. Though it has a long way to go before it reaches Carbon Net Zero, on the renewable energy side at least China already leads the world.
The high point for me was reaching Xanadu, now known as Changdu, and of course I recited Coleridge’s Kubla Khan to all and sundry. Written on Exmoor, too, though genius was interrupted by the “person from Porlock.”
