Help! Rome to Amalfi coast? Is there a train for a day trip?

Best you can do is take a train from Roma Termini to Naples Centrale, about little over an hour, then switch to the Circumvesuviana train which will take you to Sorrento in an hour, but to get to the real Amalfi Coast, you'll have to take a bus from Sorrento 45 minutes to Positano, 90 minutes to Amalfi.

Then you have to get back to Rome, retracing your steps.

If you go, leave early!

Thank you, so there is no straight train from Rome to AC?

Sorrento is not on the Amalfi Coast, and in season ferries are better than 2 trains and a bus.

Trains run straight from Roma Termini to Naples Centrale on and to Salerno stations. As written above, from Naples you can take a local train to Sorrento and then a bus to the Amalfi Coast. From Salerno you can walk for 200 meters out of the train station and then board a ferry to Positano and other villages on the Amalfi Coast. You could also hire a private driver that will take you back to Salerno letting you see the coast from the "other side"

Avoid tour companies that use buses from Rome: high speed trains are twice faster. If you have money to waste, you'd better use them to hire a private driver that will wait for you at the track and that will drive you up and down the coast, find parking etc. etc.

There are 2 competing train companies that run high speed trains from Roma Termini to both Napoli Centrale and Salerno: Trenitalia and NTV-Italotreno. You can check prices and schedules on www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en and on www.italotreno.it/en . The former company runs more trains, but their discounted tickets are usually more expensive than those offered by italotreno.

Discounted tickets come with restrictions and sell out quickly, but you can always find some seats paying the full walk-up fare at the counter.

No there is no train all the way to the Amalfi Coast. That's one reason people want to go there. Did you intend to visit Pompeii or Herculaneum as well? It's an ambitious plan.

Is this your first time in Rome? There might be better uses for a long, hot, tedious day. The time of year affects the trip, because of varying ferry schedule options. It is much cheaper to buy train tickets (no refund, no exchange) well in advance, if you can handle the lack of flexibility. That's Rome-Naples. Naples-Sorrento is a sort of squalid commuter rail service, no advance purchase needed.

I suggest you use the Search box at the top center of this newsboard (desktop version) to read many past discussions of this just barely doable daytrip. You will learn a lot more than you can from one thread.

I would advise against it. It's too far for a "comfortable" day trip - you'll end up spending a lot of time just in transit and it will be one incredibly long, tiring day. Better to spend more time in Rome, or a side trip not far from Rome.

It would be very hard for a train to take you where there are no railway tracks.

Trains can take you to Salerno (south of Naples). Then you need a ferry (or bus) from Salerno to Amalfi.

I think that is better than Via Sorrento.

It's conceivable to take an early fast train to Naples, then take a ferry from Naples to the Amalfi coast (via Sorrento or Capri possibly) continuing on to Salerno, back to Naples and back to Rome in a day without stopping. You would basically be on a boat or train all day. It's not a day trip destination. You need more time, you'll want more time, to see this region. Make it your next trip, don't try to shoehorn it into this one. Enjoy that extra day in Rome!

It is logistically possible, with planning, to do a day trip.

The next day you will ask yourself-- "Why h... did I do that?"

You can go from Rome to Salerno (one change) in 2.25-2.5 hours. Leave at 7, 8, or 9 - ish. That gives you almost a full day, take the bus in the morning (sit on the driver's side for the views), ferry in the afternoon, hopping from town to town and mostly enjoying the scenery. There's an 18.39 train back to Rome that takes 2 hours. There are frequent later trains that take 2.5-3 hours, but who cares, you can relax, even nap, after your long day.

As per usual, Chani gives good advice. You can take the 8:49 out of Termini, with no change of train, arriving in Salerno at 11:18. The bus station is adjacent to the train. It's about an hour to Amalfi, where you would change buses, another 45 minutes to Positano if you wanted. Or, like Chani says, the ferry is an option. But the bus is cool one-way--totally different perspective than the ferry, that's for sure!

Thank you all- yes this is my first time in Rome. I know it's a lot of travel to do in one day Amalfi coast but it's the only chance I will get to see it. I appreciate you all helping with advice!

You've gotten some excellent advice above, taralav, but one comment concerning the ferries? Ability to use those for getting around some of the coast depends on the season you're traveling. They don't run to all locations after October or before April, and I believe boats may not run as frequently in the late fall/early spring as during the summer months.

This is a good website for checking current ferry schedules and prices to/from various towns:

http://www.positano.com/en/ferry-schedule