The “Queen of the Roads” is vying for the coveted UNESCO title of “World Heritage Site”, January 10th, 2023.

Italy is perhaps the country which has the most UNESCO “World Heritage Sites” anywhere in the world.   A new site may soon be added to the prestigious list as Rome’s Baths of Diocletian (they were once the largest in the Roman Empire) hosted today the protocol of intent for the “Queen of the Roads”, aka the Appia Antica as a candidate for UNESCO’s “World Heritage Site”.

The “Regina Viarum”, as the Appian Way is also known, was built in 312 B.C. under the censor Appius Claudius (The Blind).  It stretches 900 km from Rome all the way to Brindisi and was once an important route for the Roman Empire from a cultural, political, social and above-all commercial point of view as it crossed several Italian regions. 

The Appia Antica was part of approximately 120,000 km of roadway which connected Rome’s vast empire to the Eternal City, thus perhaps being the inspiration of the famous phrase, “All roads lead to Rome”.

                    

On hand for the ceremony were members of the Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry as well as the presidents of the regions which are graced by a road that still today is being used by tourists, cyclists and hikers alike.

The Italian National UNESCO Committee will be submitting its proposal to UNESCO hqs in Paris in the next few days. 

Pietro Orlandi honors the memory of his missing sister Emanuela, January 14th, 2023.

Pietro Orlandi honored the memory of his sister Emanuela in a special vigil held near the Vatican in Rome.

Straight out of an Agatha Christie-John Le Carre’ novel, Emanuela would have turned 55 on January 14^th had she not disappeared into thin air on June 23^rd, 1983 at the age of 15. Since then and for the past 40 years Emanuela has never been seen again after her flute lesson that day in a music conservatory near Rome’s central Piazza Navona.

The children of a Vatican State employee, the Orlandis, headed by Pietro (the family has lived inside the Vatican), have been battling for the last 40 years to find the truth regarding the whereabouts of Emanuela.  Shrouded in mystery, the Netflix series “Vatican Girl” points the finger directly at Vatican officials, the local mafia in Rome and also foreign spy agencies.  

Pietro, supported by his lawyer Laura Sgro’, has now gone through three different popes (Wojytla, Ratzinger—who just died on December 31^st…and the current Pontiff, Bergoglio) in trying to find the truth on what initially appears as a kidnapping of his sister Emanuela.  And a mere 8 days after Ratzinger’s death new documents regarding her disappearance have now surfaced but their contents for the time being remain unknown.

Some say that Emanuela was eventually sent to live the rest of her life in a foreign cloister or is actually buried within the Vatican’s highly secretive walls (one tomb though a few years ago came up empty). 

Hundreds of people showed up at the vigil in a sign of solidarity for Pietro, his family and young Emanuela.