St Paul is possibly the greatest Marmite figure of the New Testament, attracting fascination, love and irritation in equal measure.

But visiting the sites where he travelled and preached the Gospel amid pagan imperialism can make you see him in an entirely new light, as the Tablet’s Charles Plater Trust intern, Aili Winstanley Channer – who has just returned from a pilgrimage with McCabe Travel which followed Paul’s footsteps across Greece from Neapolis to Athens – discovered.

In Corinth, the pilgrims saw the very stone platform where Paul was dragged before the magistrates in Acts 18 amid ancient ruins overgrown with poppies, and a pavement stone inscribed by Erastus, the city official whose greetings Paul sends in Romans 16:23. They also drove along the bright blue waters of the Saronic Gulf to the little port of Cenchreae, from where the deacon Phoebe set off for Rome carrying Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

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