Encouraged by the 13th-century book "The Travels of Marco Polo", Italian physicist (物理学家) Alessandro Codello started his own Silk Road journey a few years ago from Italy. He traveled through countries including Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and finally China. During his trip, Codello carried "The Travels of Marco Polo" with him. "Every time I reached a new area, I tried to find ideas or places that matched Polo'swords… The most interesting thing was finding what he wrote in the book was right in front of my eyes." he shared.

Codello is very interested in the markets along the way, as lively trades and exchanges took place in those places. From time to time, he was invited to give speeches and attend meetings at universities. He mentioned that as a physicist, he couldn't wait to find anything related to science along the way. He talked about his trip to Khiva in Uzbekistan. It is the hometown of mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (780-850), from whom the word "algorithm (算法)" gets its name. "It's closely related with Shenzhen today," he said. "It is very important to many problems and technologies that engineers in Shenzhen meet."

When Codello finally arrived in China at the end of his journey, he felt the same curiosity as Marco Polo. "When I first arrived in China, I was not used to paying with a phone. I was amazed that banknotes were not commonly used. However, when Marco Polo was here, he was amazed that people in China were using paper money. Once again, I shared the same feeling with Marco Polo," Codello said.