Founded around 530 BC by political exiles from the Aegean island of Samos, Pozzuoli (ancient Dikaiarchia) came into its own under the Romans, who in 194 BC colonised it, renamed it Puteoli (Little Wells) and turned it into a major port. It was here that St Paul is said to have landed in AD 61, that San Gennaro was beheaded and that screen goddess Sophia Loren spent her childhood. A bout of bradyseism (the slow upward and downward movement of the earth’s crust) saw Pozzuoli’s seabed rise 1.85m between 1982 and 1984, rendering its harbour too shallow for large vessels.

Indeed, geological curiosities surround the town, from the scorching Solfatara Crater 1.2km to the east to novice mountain Monte Nuovo 3km to the west.

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