Reality Trek

In the 1990s, two Queens friends set out on a trip to retrace some of the adventures of Marco Polo, and are sharing their experiences in the documentary “In the Footsteps of Marco Polo.”
Douglaston resident Denis Belliveau and College Point resident Francis O’Donnell are both graduates of the School of Visual Arts and have traveled to many different countries.
They left for their journey in 1993. The two men retraced the 25,000-mile-long route that the legendary explorer took when going from Venice to China and returning afterwards.
One of the reasons Belliveau said they decided to go on the trip was because, although there have been numerous attempts to replicate it, no one has ever been successful at it.
“When you find something that hasn’t been done, you’ve got to do it,” he said.
Before actually starting out on the trip, Belliveau and O’Donnell spent a year and a half doing preparation, which included conducting research and talking to scholars and historians.
The journey was completed in 1995, coinciding with the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo’s return to Venice. The men used Polo’s book as their guide and tried to find things he wrote about in it. They were in 20 different countries and eight war zones during the journey.
“We made a pact that, under any conditions, no matter what, we were only coming back to the United States two ways - either dead or successful,” O’Donnell said. He also said, “The best part for me is looking back and realizing how much I’ve grown and learned,” adding that the trip changed him as a person.
Belliveau and O’Donnell had started making a film of the trip about two years ago, which had its premiere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was there that American Public Television saw it and became interested in their story.
During the last six months, they worked on the television documentary “In the Footsteps of Marco Polo,” which debuted on WLIW21 on Sunday, November 16. There will be encore presentations of it at 9 p.m. on Thursday, November 27 on WLIW21 and at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, December 10 on Channel Thirteen.
Along with the film, Belliveau and O’Donnell recently came out with a book about their journey, which is also entitled “In the Footsteps of Marco Polo.”
“In a lot of ways, the trip hasn’t come to an end till now,” Belliveau said.
Belliveau said that through the journey it had been in their heads to do the film and book, adding that it would have been a “selfish two-year trip” if they did not share what they had learned.
Belliveau and O’Donnell now travel to speak about their trip. They said that they have “a few things on the drawing board” for other trips they might do, although the two said there would never be another trip quite like the one to retrace Marco Polo’s steps.
For more information on “In the Footsteps of Marco Polo,” you can also visit www.wliw.org/marcopolo.