Sorrento and Pompeii

Hi Jean. My wife and I stayed at Casa Astarita in Sorrento in September 2008 and it was wonderful. It's right on the main drag in Sorrento so you can easily find it, and also join in the evening passagiata. Breakfast was excellent. There's a Piazza just down the street where there are many good restaurants, and numerous narrow side streets with restaurants and outdoor seating.

Here's the website: http://www.casastarita.com/en/

Rates for Mid June 2014 are coming in at €145 a night, so near your budget.

As for guides in Pompeii.....we didn't have one, so can't help there. At the entrance to the site you get a pamphlet/map that helps with navigation, and in the pamphlet there are brief descriptions of many (or maybe all...can't remember) of the sites within Pompeii. We found it to be enough for our liking. Spent maybe 3 or 4 hours wandering around the site and although it was interesting, we found we were getting information overload, so moved on.

Hi Jean. We stayed at Palazzo Montefusco Relais (#1 rated B&B on Trip Advisor & for good reason!) and loved it. The location is perfect and the hotel is modern, clean and very comfortable. The staff go out of their way to make sure their guests are comfortable. If you can secure a reservation, I would not hesitate to stay there!

As for a tour guide, we used Sasha Bianco as our guide for Pompeii & Herculaneum. We also used his brother, Gianluca, as our driver. Gianluca picked us up at our hotel in Sorrento and delivered us back at the end of the day. If you don't want/need a private driver, you can simply meet Sasha at Pompeii for whatever length tour you desire. You might consider visiting Herculaneum as well. Sasha suggested we visit Herculaneum before Pompeii and we were glad we did. Herculaneum is better preserved than Pompeii & he showed us what the typical Roman structures were like & how life was at Herculaneum so that when we visited Pompeii, we had a much better understanding & could visualize it better.

Sasha was a great guide; he is very passionate about Pompeii & Herculaneum & his father is/was also a tour guide so Sasha grew up seeing both sites frequently & he knows them like the back of his hand. Sasha is very easy to understand and has a great sense of humor which we enjoyed. Sasha's e-mail address is: [email protected] and his web-site is: http://www.tourspompei.com/

Have a great trip!

Don't leave out Herculaneum, it is a great site to see.

Jean

RS has a good audio tour you can download for Pompei or you can rent a unit at the entry --- Did not feel any need to have a "live" guide

As for a hotel in Sorrento, be sure to look at Il Nido --http://www.ilnido.com/-- check out their webcam for a sample of the view

We have stayed twice at the hotel Antiche Mura in Sorrento (most recently in 2013) and loved it- lovely rooms and public areas, fabulous breakfast (among the best we've had in Europe), walking distance to train/bus station as well as to all the shops and restaurants of central Sorrento, well priced IMO. They also have a pool set amid lemon groves, which in late June might be welcome. One restaurant I'd recommend, btw, is Da Gigino (also Delfino's for seafood down by the sea, but that one requires a taxi or a rental car- and taxis are brutally and ridiculously expensive in Sorrento proper; we rented a car one day to go to Paestum - for the ruins- and Vietri sul Mare -for the pottery!- and used it to take to dinner at Delfino's while we still had it).
As for Pompeii, we've gone twice and not used a guide; they do offer a pretty good audio guide there. You probably know that Pompeii is easily reached by train from Sorrento. Herculaneum is also easily reached from Sorrento but involves more of a walk to get to the site (well worth it though).

Stayed at villa La Terrazza with our family. Absolutely gorgeous! They have different sized suites. May need to stay for a week in June.the owner gave an awesome boat tour. We also usedRS audio guide for Pompeii and enjoyed it!

Easy bed hostel in Pompeii and for a guide, Pina Esposito.

Although I suggested Sasha Bianco as a guide for Pompeii &/or Herculaneum, I can also second Michelle's suggestion about Pina Esposito. She is also a very fine guide. We used her for a 2-hour tour of the Archaeological Museum in Naples and we were very pleased. She is well educated and really knows her stuff. I would confidently use Pina or Sasha again.

I don't understand Elizabeth's statement that you need a car to get to Delfino's. Delfino's in located in Marina Grande and our hotel was right off Piazza Tasso. It was about a 10-15 minute walk from Piazza Tasso to Marina Grande which was very doable and we did not need a car. We walked from our hotel down to Marina Grande almost every night and the walk was not bad at all. Sorrento is pretty small and easy to navigate on foot.

We loved Il Nido.

I, too, didn't even realize (until looking at Google Maps Satelite view) that one could get to Delfino by car! We walked there via a series of scenic, pedestrian switchback paths that might not be as appreciated by someone with walking problems...but certainly doesn't require a car to get to. Allow time to enjoy the walk to and from, and the dining experience at, Delfino's.

We're history freaks, so we were well prepared to tour Pompeii on our own; might I recommend that you take me along? ;-) I'll pay for my own room...