Naples/Sorrento

We'll be there mid to late November.

We did this in 2005 and stayed at the Il Nido hotel. It's about a mile up the hill from the Circumvesuviana station but the hotel had a free shuttle which will pick you up and you off. They also had several scheduled trips to and from the 'downtown' area every day. The view from the dining room and its terrace is great and, more important, so is the food! On our last day in Sorrento, we took the public bus on the Amalfi Drive all the way to Salerno, changing at Amalfi, checked our bags at the Salerno RR station and took a boat trip back to Amalfi for a few hour visit before sailing back to Salerno for the train trip back to Rome. This enabled us to get the benefit of the Amalfi Drive and avoid backtracking along the coast to Naples to get the train to Rome. There is frequent direct train service from Salerno to Rome. The trip takes between 2 1/2 and 3 hours. Check prices and schedules at trenitalia.com (using the Italian spellings of city names). I don't think the substantially higher fare for the Eurostar train is worth the 20 or so minutes it cuts off the InterCity train time between Salerno and Roma.

When are you going to be there?

Hi Catherine-
We were just there the second week of November 2010 and stayed at the Hotel Antiche Mura. It's very easy to walk there from the train station, but the real clincher is that it's right in the heart of town, off the Piazza Tasso. This was especially important because we experienced several days of rain, so we could easily walk back to the hotel to dry off for a bit before heading out again. Not to mention that the hotel is beautiful and has one of the biggest breakfast spreads of any that we've had in Italy. The rates are quite good in the off season of November.

Thank you, Robert and Char -- I'll definitely check out your suggestions. I appreciate your experience and advice!

we stayed at the Hotel Savoia last May. Clean, reasonable and a great breakfast.