Help needed urgently!

Send Roberto a private message ASAP! Or maybe Quirite!

I have found this website to be highly accurate in terms of transport options.

http://www.rome2rio.com/s/Sorrento/Bari

You can go by train, bus, or plane,,but all options have you return to Naples and cross Italy from there. It is only an hour to backtrack, and not expensive.

I saw that site too, but it just seems so stupid to backtrack a whole hour and then add nearly five more hours to get to Bari. I am just so mad and frustrated right now.

If you want to do it by train, it has to be through Naples.

The timing hard part is to hit the connection at Caserta for the less frequent train to Bari.

A bus would take about the same amount of time and follow the same general route through Naples.

Look at a map -- you're not really backtracking -- and a train has to stick to the tracks.

That part of Italy (way south) is not well-served by trains---terrain is very rugged and there aren't many cities to connect.

You could have checked the transport options before booking the Sorrento night, if avoiding backtracks is that important to you. Or is it the 5-hour journey from Naples to Bari that you mind? Again, advance route planning is best to avoid surprises. Especially in Italy, places that appear to be quite close may require a long detour by train. I recall someone who was irate that they could not go from Varenna to Trento by train without returning to Milan. Varenna and Trento look close on a map and they might have found a shorter route by bus, but the mountains dictate the train route and they do not run east-west through those mountains. Apparently not from Sorrento either.

Maybe rent a car for the day? Not something I would recommend, we don't like driving in Italy.

With just a couple of quick pit stops the drive is almost as long. Plus there's the time spent picking up and getting rid of the car.

If you are in Toledo, OH then you drive to Detroit, MI and then you want to drive to Cleveland, OH you need to back track through Toledo. Geography and roads dictate the routing and to get out of Sorrento to go nearly anywhere else you need to go back toward Naples. From Sorrento to Naples is hardly back tracking anyway. Lots of Americans commute longer distances on a daily basis.

I would rent a car, not so much because of the time to get there, but because a car affords more flexibility once you are in Puglia. There lots of nice places to see there that are more easily visited by car.

Roberto, thanks for the Toledo, Ohio reference.

Danielle, it's really not a big deal, I've done it by bus and by train many times to get to either Bari or Matera. Take a deep breath. You've already invested a considerable amount of time and money for this trip, the time and money for this leg isn't that much, relatively.

Once you do get back to Naples, you won't be passing through Sorrento again, so it won't be an actual backtrack. The train and the bus take a more direct route.

Caserta, as noted by Ed, is the key. The ONLY trains in and out of Sorrento are the private Circumvesuviana commuter trains which take 70 minutes in both directions to and from Naples..

You then go upstairs for the Regionale train to Caserta, wait there a while, and then get the InterCity to Bari.

Are you using a railpass? If so, the Circumvesuviana is not covered by it, and you will need to pay for a reservation on the InterCity train.

There is another choice - without going back to Napoli. You can take a SITA bus along the Amalfi coast to Salerno. That will take, depending on time of day, 90 minutes to 2 hours. You then get a train which avoids Napoli to Caserta, see above. The train from Salerno takes about the same time but is a bit less frequent.

If you have done no advance planning you can't complain and declare an emergency. If you had planned you would have seen that there are no trains along the Amalfi Coast and that only the Circumvesuviana goes around the Bay of Naples.

Danielle, I know it's too late for you, but thanks for posting it so that others can learn from your experience. Travelers to Italy cannot assume that there are rail lines connecting every location in the way that's most convenient to their planned itinerary. This is especially true of Italy south of Rome, where the rail system is not as developed as in the north. (It's also true of some places in the north - Ravenna, for example, is a real pain to get to from Assisi even though they're not all that far apart as the crow flies.) This is why research in advance is so important.

Don't let this ruin your vacation.

Hey. Why are you guys putting down the south of Italy so much? What do you mean that rail lines are not developed in the south? They are certainly more developed than here in California. Try and catch a train (there is only one a day, so you can't miss it) from San Francisco to Los Angeles (about the same distance as Rome to Bari) and then you tell me who's more developed. And by the way, to catch a train from SF to LA you need to "back track" to Oakland BY BUS.

@Roberto, thanks for the perspective. I think people expect all of Italy to function like the North does, knowing little or nothing of the sociopolitical history that set the framework for the current differences.

Bus from Sorrento to Salerno, then train through Taranto to Bari covers new ground, no backtracking. However, it involves just a 17 minute connection time in Taranto. Gets you into Bari at around 5:00 pm, if all goes on schedule.

Thanks everyone! For those concerned: I DID plan this trip well, but what I initially found in the way of rail transportation from Sorrento to Bari turned out to be something else, that fault is mine. In any case, we have decided to suck it up - to live in the moment, as my mother keeps telling me to do - and keep the Sorrento hotel, while taking the train back and forth. What I consider to be back and forth, let me clarify. We talked to the desk at our Naples hotel and they were willing to give us our room for another night, but really, we want to go to Sorrento, so onward and eastward, right? Though I guess it's also south...ward? Anyway, tomorrow we go to Capri, then run really fast to the Circumvesuviana on Tuesday morning, have a lovely night in Sorrento, then run really fast back to the Circumvesuviana on Wednesday morning and get back on for Naples, where we get on another train (a much more expensive one!) and ride to Bari. It can be done, it's no problem. And you know, there's always wine, right?

Now you've got it!

Thanks Zoe! :-)

I'm glad to see that you have it worked out, Danielle; and I hope that you have a great time in Puglia. My friends go there every couple of years and they were born on the Swiss/Italian border, and the first Italian I met in Europe was from Bari.