Italy Trip 2024 - Walking out of Pozzuoli in the Footsteps of Paul

Nov 20

We started with breakfast back at the little shop with best pastries ever. Then with the help of a kind woman who was sweeping her balcony, we finally found the Pozzuoli Duomo (main cathedral)… the most impossible place to find ever. The cathedral is built from the foundation and columns of a pagan temple built in the 190s BC and became a temple of Augustus in the late 1st c BC. At the time of Paul’s landing in Pozzuoli, this whole elevated area - the Rione Terra, was part of the Augustus temple complex.

We walked through the underground of the Flavian Amphitheater. The upper levels are being restored and improved and were closed.

We walked through what we already affectionately call “our” traffic circle, the site of the ancient NW city gate, and then followed the road that Paul and company likely took. It went past a long line of 1st century BC to 2nd century AD tombs, took a turn toward Capua and became a small lane with the original 2500 year old paving. It was called the Via Consularis Capuam Puteolis. You can’t imagine how excited this made us - nothing like walking on the very stones from Biblical times and that Paul likely walked.

For dinner, we took a cab to a restaurant further out on the old VCCP, Villaelvira. This restaurant sits on top of 1st c AD to 2nd c BC tombs. There are frescos - very very early - of Christian themes and Jesus as good shepherd. The head waiter gave us an amazing tour, then the fanciest dinner we’ve had in Italy (a little awkward in our days old dusty travel clothes LOL). The interior floor of the restaurant is glass so that you can see down into the excavations. Surrounding this area are more above ground ancient tombs and monuments - all of which Paul would have pasted by on the way out of Pozzuoli.

We are preparing for a tour of Pompeii tomorrow! Good night and God bless!

PB, Margery and Jacob

The 1st c BC roman road Via Consularis Capuam Potueolis - Paul likely walked this road toward Capua and then the Via Appia into Rome

Fruit market on the harbor at Pozzuoli

Special tomatoes that grow in clusters and used mainly to cook with fish

Pozzuoli streets

Unassuming (and VERY difficult to find) entrance to the Cathedral of Pozzuoli

Cathedral is built out of the remains of a 1st c BC temple which became the temple to Augustus. Paul would have seen it looming up on the hill above the harbor in Puteoli