DUBY TAL/ALBATROSS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

SEASIDE VILLAGE. Nestled on the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum served as a fishing village during the Roman period (first century B.C.E.- fourth century C.E.). Later, during the Byzantine period (fourth-seventh centuries), it became a Christian pilgrimage site because of its prominence in the ministry of Jesus. Visitors to Capernaum can see the remains of a Byzantine village, a fourth-century synagogue built overtop an earlier synagogue from the first century, and a fifth-century octagonal church built over the traditional house of St. Peter from the first century (over both of these sits a modern church from 1990 that resembles an octagonal spaceship).