Few Italian cities can compare with Naples. No wonder neighboring Pozzuoli has long been overshadowed by its bombastic, culture-drenched bigger sibling. 

But the port city—a 30-minute train ride west of Naples—is one of southern Italy’s oldest settlements. Modern Pozzuoli—where Sophia Loren grew up—blends with the Roman settlement Puteoli at every turn. The road into town wheels around the amphitheater, the Rione Terra neighborhood has Roman streets still paving the clifftop, and stray cats inhabit an ancient necropolis.