Amber Road

The Amber Road (German: Bernsteinstraße, Italian: Via dell Ambra) is an ancient trade route which connects the Baltic Sea with the Adriatic Sea. The Amber Road leads from Aquileia near Venice to Saint Petersburg and passes through Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia.

The Amber Road connects for millennia the Baltic with the Adriatic sea

One of the largest amber deposits is in the Baltic region. Accordingly, amber trade prospered and a number of trade routes emerged. We don't exactly know when the "Amber Road" was established, but findings from prehistoric times prove that trade along this corridor existed long before the Roman Empire. Near the mouth of the Morava River, the Amber Road traversed the Danube.

At this meeting point of the trans-European North-South route and the old East-West route along the Danube, the Romans erected the Legionary camp of Carnuntum. There, after about 2,000 kilometers of paths and unpaved trails which led south from the Baltic Sea, the Amber Road joined the huge network of Roman roads connecting all parts of the Empire. Huge and wealthy cities like Scarbantia (Sopron, Hungary) and Savaria (Szombathely, Hungary), Poetovium (Ptuj), Celeia (Celje) and Emona (Ljubljana, Slovenia) prospered along this road.

The last section of the road was the Via Gemina which connected Emona with Aquileia, the Roman capital of the Venetians and most important Adriatic port of the Roman Empire. Sections of the Roman Amber Road can still be seen in the Austrian province of Burgenland, in Hungary and Slovenia - and of course in Aquileia/Italy.