Rush Hour Traffic - Going from Sorrento to Naples and Naples to Rome

There is traffic in the morning driving into Naples coming from that area, so I would leave much later in the morning, around 10:30 or 11.
Why do you care about rush hour in Rome if you are using the train?

Thank you for this info.

Our original plan was to leave Sorrento around 3pm or 4pm, but then we got concerned that we'd get stuck in rush hour traffic going to the train station in Naples. We may take the circumvesuviana from Sorrento to Naples or we may hire a car for that leg of the journey. There are 10 of us.

I was concerned about traffic in Rome because we have to get from the train station to our hotel and don't want to get stuck in traffic.
Where I'm from in Boston it can take 45 minutes to go 5 city blocks during the height of rush hour in the city. So I figured if we can avoid rush hour that would be good.

Well in Italy, inside city centers, they have those strange animals called ZTLs (limited traffic zones), that only taxis and residents can access and corsie preferenziali (preferential lanes), that is lanes or even entire streets that only taxis and buses can use, therefore I wouldn’t worry too much about the taxi encountering a lot of traffic from the station to the hotel, unless your hotel is outside of the city center, in which case it depends. But if your hotel is in the historical center, your taxi should find a reasonably quick way to reach it even at rush hour.

This is good to know because earlier in the trip we are driving a rental car from Tuscany to Rome and we want to drop off our luggage at our AirBnB before we return the rental car. We will ask our hosts whether we are in one of those limited traffic zones.
Thanks so much for your help!

What do you think about leaving Sorrento in the late afternoon to catch the train from Naples Centrale to Rome? We were thinking of leaving Sorrento around 4 of 5pm. Will that put us in the height of rush hour in Naples?

I wouldn't drive into Rome, rather drop the car at Tiburtina Station and taxi the short distance to your lodging.

Info on driving in Italy.

https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/dont-mess-with-ztl-zones

Learning about ZTLs (what they are and where they are) could be a very savvy investment of your time.
Many people come back home to discover they were immortalized by one ZTL Photo which was duly attached to the expensive ticket in the mail.

Personally I would not take a car from Sorrento to Naples since the train is so much easier and you are at the train station when you get to Naples. And it is probably faster. The train is not brother by rush hour. And if there are ten of you your are going to need a couple of cars. Give yourself 30 minutes to an hour to change trains in Naples. It is bit of walk from the Circum station to the Naples station even though it is all under the same roof.

,,We will ask our hosts whether we are in one of those limited traffic zones. ,,,, It is not a matter of whether the B&B is in a TLzone but whether you hit one, or a restricted line, between the B&B and the car rental drop. Driving Rome just has additional risks especially when trying to find a specific address.