Via Balbia

The Libyan Coastal Highway (Arabic: الطريق الساحلي الليبي‎‎) is a highway that is the only major road that runs along the entire east-west length of the Libyan Mediterranean coastline. It is a section in the Cairo–Dakar Highway #1 in the Trans-African Highway system of the African Union, Arab Maghreb Union and others.

Built under the rule of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in colonial Italian Libya in the 1930s, it was named Via Balbia' (or Litoranea Balbo) in honour of governor-general Italo Balbo, but renamed to "Libyan Coastal Highway" after independence and enlarged.

In the 2011 Libyan civil war the highway was a strategic and symbolic element, as the main route through the contested coastal region between Sirte and Benghazi.

In March 1937, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made a state visit to Italian Libya to open this new military and civilian highway, built by governor-general Italo Balbo. When Balbo died in 1940 in a plane crash, the Italian government named the 1822 kilometer road in his honour.

Italians constructed also a minor road parallel to the coastal one starting from Marj through Marawa, to Lamluda, and it is 143 km (89 mi) long.

Near the middle of the road, the border of Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica was marked by a Marble Arch, named Arch of Fileni. It was created by the Italian architect Florestano Di Fausto. There was an inscription at the top of the arch which read: Alme Sol, possis nihil urbe Roma visere maius (Latin for "Oh kind Sun, may you never look upon a city greater than Rome"). The "Arch of Fileni" was demolished in 1970 by the new coup d'état revolutionary regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

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Wikipedia