An 18-car caravan travels from Xi'an Daming Palace to Rome, which was once the route of the ancient Silk Road. The journey, covering 15,000 kilometers over 55 days, is expected to be helpful for Silk Road's application for "World Cultural Heritage" status.

The Silk Road is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe.

The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade, a major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive trans-continental network.

By Xie Fang