The ancient Roman Appian Way road network has become Italy’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site. The  Via Appia Antica, or Appian Way,  the oldest and most significant road built by the ancient Romans, has been named a Unesco world heritage site, making Italy the nation with the world’s highest number of locations on the list at sixty sites.

Sometimes called the Regina Viarum, or Queen of Roads, it connected Rome with the port of Brindisi in the south and marked a revolution in the construction of roads.

The first section of highway was built in 312BC by the Roman statesman Appius Claudius Caecus and served as a strategic corridor for military purposes. Until then, the only roads outside ancient Rome were Etruscan and went towards Etruria in central Italy.

The first 17km (10 miles) of the cobblestone path remains and is preserved within the Appia Antica archeological park in the south of Rome. Popular with history buffs, walkers and cyclists, the perfectly intact road is flanked by what remains of ancient Roman aqueducts and villas. Beneath the path is a sprawling network of catacombs where Christian converts were buried.

I’ll never forget my first wander on the Appia Antica more than four decades ago. Visiting the catacombs and sites such as the Tomb of St. Cecilia at the catacomb of St. Callixtus really brought ancient Rome to life for me.