UNESCO World Cultural Heritage - Treasures for Eternity

Continuation of the series: UNESCO World Cultural Heritage – Treasures for Eternity

Via Appia

by Sven Rech | SR | arte | 2026

 
Over 2.300 years ago, a man in Rome had a road built that ran in a dead straight line into the distance, all the way to Capua. The man’s name was Appius Claudius Caecus, known as ‘the Blind’, and no one had ever built a road like it before. 120 years later, it was extended as far as what is now Brindisi.
‘Quo Vadis?’, the Spartacus uprising, Cicero’s death: along the Via Appia, every stone tells a story. The ancient military road stretched for around 600 km from Rome to the Adriatic Sea. Later, exotic goods and new ideas made their way back along the same route. Since 2024, the surviving sections have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – a challenge for heritage conservation.