He left from here.
Or so the island insists.

History is not always certain. That uncertainty is the point. Korčula does not claim Marco Polo because it needs the tourist trade. It claims him because a story this large needs a home — and this island has stone walls old enough to hold it.

He was born here in 1254, into a family of Venetian merchants already intimate with distance. Marco Polo learned to travel before he learned to stay. The name Depolo — the very street where Marco Polo Shop I stands today — has been prominent in Korčula to the present day.

He returned from China with things no European had seen. More than goods — he returned with proof that the world was immeasurably larger than anyone at home had imagined. In 1298, during the naval Battle of Curzola — fought in these very waters — he was captured by the Genoese. First imprisoned in Korčula, then transferred to Genoa, he dictated his travels to his cellmate Rustichello da Pisa. Il Milione was the result: the book that changed the cartography of the world.