Pozzuoli sits on a supervolcano: the Phlegraean Fields, the breathing caldera that raises and lowers the ground beneath it — the bradyseism that left seashell borings on the columns of the "Temple of Serapis", actually the ancient market hall. The Flavian amphitheatre, Italy's third largest, keeps astonishing underground works; the Rione Terra, the old citadel evacuated in 1970, is open again with its excavations.
Sophia Loren grew up here, and the ferries for Procida and Ischia leave from the harbour. Myth is everywhere: Lake Avernus, the Romans' gate to the underworld, is ten minutes away.
Near Pozzuoli
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
