Pompeii-Puglia Itinerary help

It is generally held on this newsboard that NO ONE wants to possess a car while they are visiting or sleeping in Naples. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is quite a lawless roadway area, with people parking on the sidewalks and in travel lanes, and driving with poor attention to safety. We walked to the MANN (... initials not in current use here!) from our Naples hotel.

I don't doubt that the car will be useful in Puglia, which I have not visited. I'd remind you how risky it is to have visible luggage in a parked car, and that would be worse in a less regulated area like Campania. Most people would use the gritty Circumvesuviana train to visit Pompeii from Naples or Sorrento, especially WITHOUT luggage, because the train is so crowded. In fact, Pompeii and Herculaneum have excellent luggage storage for people on their way to a hotel the same day.

No one has reported here on just how many parking spaces there are at Pompeii, or the other four historic excavations. Do you have zero interest in Sorrento, Capri, and Positano? Just checking. Have you started studying up on IDP, ZTL, and government-required insurance?

I would fly into Naples and then take the train or airport bus to stay in Sorrento. Visit Pompeii and Herculaneum by train; I highly recommend taking a guided tour in Pompeii such as from Mondo Tours. Don't know what MANN is. Then go to Puglia. Your choices are train from Naples to pick up a car in Bari (about 4-5 hours), bus, or renting a car in Sorrento and driving. With this approach you have a few days to get over jetlag before driving. If you fly out of Naples be sure to be in Naples the night before instead of starting for the airport from a location hours away.

We found the book "Lonely Planet Puglia & Basilicata" useful in describing Puglia and for planning our September visit. It's about 15 years old but the towns haven't changed that much (the train times in the book are mostly wrong though). We also looked for blogs with stories from travel in Puglia, and watched YouTube videos such as walking tours.

We were in Campania last month with a car and based in Pompei. We drove to the archaeological sites, Positano and Sorrento. We had no trouble parking everywhere, then again it was low season - the ZTL in Positano was open! Late September will be more crowded though not as bad as July. But there were a number of lots along the road across from the Pompei ruins where you could park for the day. We rode the regional train from Pompei station (not the suburban train from Pompei Scavi) for a day trip to Naples to see the museum.

If you want to see more of Naples you could spend the first night or two there and then pick up a car at the airport and stay somewhere out near Pompei. But driving a little bit out in the suburbs on the first day may be more relaxing than coping with the urban grit of Naples! Good luck with the trip!

All you really need to do is choose where you wish to stay while in Naples area and decide on the day allotment. I think you are correct to plan the Naples area first, and if you can’t fly out of Bari or Brindisi, return to Naples area for last night.
I’d pick up car at airport or in Salerno, will depend on where you stay.

Judith.

There’s a lot of options for you. I took a little look at some of your history on this RS forum and see you did a cycle trip in the Netherlands a few years back. Much of Puglia is relatively flat, so self-guided cycling in Puglia may be a way for you to see some of it quite nicely if cycling or e-cycling is something you still enjoy.

While a car in and near Naples is nothing most of us North Americans would ever choose, driving from Naples (airport) or from Salerno to Puglia might be a good way to see Paestum, the Cilento region of Campania, Basilicata and Matera on your way to Puglia. Car could be useful in Puglia, or biking and/or train depending on where you choose to go. Train service is more limited, but there’s a line from Bari, down the coast through Polignano a Mare, Monopoli and Ostuni and on to Brindisi and Lecce. Other towns might involve bus rather than train, eg Martina Franco or Alberobello.

John mentioned the Lonely Planet book for Puglia and Basilicata. I equally endorse the LP book for Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast which also has information on various islands near there, as well as the Cilento region, further to the south in Campania.

Last April, we did an “8 day” bike ride (in other words 6 days biking) in Puglia, spent more time in Bari (which I thought was a great medium sized city) and Lecce and spent three days crossing over from Lecce to Naples via rental car and the four nights in Naples with day trips to Pompeii and the island of Ischia.

Got a lot of planning help on this forum. See

• https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/amalfi-vs-cilento-coast-re-dux
• https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/puglia-to-naples-itinerary-suggestions
• the following focussed on the Naples area. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/naples-and-environs-suggestions-per-favore

For cycle tours, see https://www.pugliacycletours.com. Our cycling started in Alberobello with a loop trip to Martina Franca and Locorotondo, followed by the following: Alberobello to Monopoli via Polignano; then to Ostuni, then a bike-train-bike day into the Salento, SE of Lecce, then to Otranto and finall to Lecce.

Our 2024 TR is at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/southern-italy-30-days-three-ways-to-travel

All in all, we were in Puglia about 12 days, three days/2 nights to get to Naples and 3 days/4nights in and near Naples.

I hope these bread crumbs are useful to you.

Thanks everyone. I must admit to getting scared off my plan to combine Pompeii with Puglia. I don’t want to deal with cruise crowds if I can help it and crazy driving is also intimidating. Maybe we should just pay up and fly in and out of Bari. Am I being too chicken?

It is not difficult to fill two weeks in Puglia, and I would not hesitate to spend more to get a flight to exactly where I want to be, but there is nothing unsettling about driving OUT of Naples that you especially need to avoid. If you think you'll get a chance to spend time in Naples and see Pompeii on a future trip though, that would certainly simplify things.

Solo, F, S, 70+ and just spend the month of November 2024 mainly in southern Italy/Puglia solely using public transpo out of season. I'm a very big pre planner so had all the bus and train schedules and except for one day trip where I was on the wrong side of the street for the bus and it came 10 minutes early was I out of luck to make other connections. Got to my main destination so all was OK. Lecce was wonderful and spent 5 days there going out on day trips as well. Opted for Polignano Al Mare which was delightful but small. When I went to Monopoli realized as a history afficianado I should have stayed there as it was a little larger and more historic but then loved flavor of PAM.