southern italy

No, one week is not sufficient for seeing the major attractions in southern Italy. It would work for the Amalfi Coast area, but not if you wanted to include Puglia (Alberobello, etc.). Whether you could squeeze in Maratea would depend on how much you wanted to rush through the Amalfi area, whether you wanted to spend time in Naples, and perhaps whether you were driving or using public transportation.

Use ViaMichelin to check driving times; pad VM's estimates a bit.

Use trenitalia.com to check train times.

Google "Bus City A to City B" to check bus times.

Thanks for your fast reply and useful tips. Do you think is it better to stay in sorrento for a couple of days and then move to amalfi coast since it needs more than one day trip to see the main attractions in and around. So we can do sorrento and Naples and move to amalfi coast. And how many days do we need more to visit alberobello and Maratea ?

Last year March we based 5 nights in Sorrento, and did the Amalfi Coast & Naples from there.

Sorrento is probably the best place on the A.C. to base because of easy (I should say 'easier', still not a piece of cake) transportation to anywhere, but unless you're in one of the top, expensive hotels it's not quite as picturesque as someplace like Positano or Ravello. But that was OK with us, because we'd do our daytrips wherever, then come back to Sorrento late afternoon, take a nap at our B&B, then walk a short distance to one of a large number of fantastic, reasonably-priced restaurants near Sorrento's Piazza Tasso. I thought Sorrento had the best variety of great food on the peninsula, which is uber-important to me!

RE: Maratea and Alberobello (different directions), please consult www.rome2rio.com to get your logistics straight. Don't book through them, but you need to realize how far it is & long it takes in parts of southern Italy to get from Point A to Point B. Much different than the speed & efficiency of the Freccia trains of the north in Italy and northern Europe in general.

Enjoy your planning!

I personally would stay most anywhere but Naples so kind of opposite of what you are thinking.
1 week is good if you want to see Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi Coast you will have time to do most everything you want.

However working in the far away towns of Alberobello, Maratea sound like best for another trip or you need more time. They are not close enough for day tripping to so would need another base.
For the initial plan inn my original 2 lines I am envisioning 2 bases to best see everything. Since you want to stay in Naples, maybe Naples and Positano for example.
Trying to then work in a 3rd base within 1 week is too much plus you would need to back track to fly out again I assume.

Where do you fly in and out?
Are you planning on visiting Pompeii?
Will you rent a car or use public transport?

A few years ago we spent a week in Sorrento and found it a delightful base. It was nice to stay in one place with great restaurants and good connections to what we wanted to see. Here's what we did:

• Arrival day mid-afternoon, settled into hotel, took a walk, had dinner. We took the Circumvesuviana from Napoli to Sorrento.
• One day trip to Napoli to see the Archeological Museum and take the Rick Steves' self-guided walking tour. It was a very full day. Back to Sorrento for dinner.
• Day trip to Pompeii and private tour with Gaetano Manfredi. It was worth every centissimo. We had an early tour and by noon were done with the site. Back to Sorrento for rest, shopping, dinner.
• Day trip to the Amalfi Coast This you can do many ways and spend all or part of the day. We skipped Positano and concentrated on Amalfi Town and Atrani. (There is a lovely walk between the two described in Rick's guidebook.)
  
• Day trip to Herculaneum took about 1/2 day, actually. You could combine this with Pompeii but it is a lot of time in ruins for a single day.
• Two days we spent just in Sorrento to see the museum, walk around, take pictures, etc. Also took a "day off" to do laundry, etc as we were moving on to 9 nights in Rome.

Do you have 7 nights so 6 full days? You could do the above and also take a day trip to Capri. Maybe skip Herculaneum and go instead to Ravenna for a day. I think Puglia and Maratea are too far afield.

You certainly could spend 3 nights in one of the Amalfi Coast towns (love Ravenna! We spent 3 nights there one fall weekend when we lived in Rome) and then spend 4 in Sorrento to do the things nearer to there like Pompeii and Naples.

Don't try to do everything. You'll end up exhausted even more than elsewhere in Italy because it is not very easy to get around the area. Make time to relax a little!

Puglia makes for a nice week-long trip by itself. I'm wondering whether Maratea (though I think it's a nice seaside destination) is a typo for "Matera", which is in Basilicata but can be combined with Puglia. That area really, really benefits from having a car available, but it is possible to get around fairly well (though somewhat slowly) via bus and the van excursions offered by the Lecce tourist office.

According to the above clarifications and tips it seems we have to exclude alberobello and maratea and do it later on a seperate trip unless we extend our stay in the northern coast.
We didn't decide yet if it is better to hire a car or use the public transportations. Usually we prefer to have our car. However, I read in this forum that the car may complicate our stay due to parking issues. So don't know what to decide yet.

Jana, I did a very similar trip in October of 2016. As others have suggested in this forum, I would recommend Sorrento as a base. From there you can easily visit Naples and Capri. I went on to use Positano as my next base from there Amalfi, Ravello, and other towns are easily reached. If you were unable to get to Capri from Sorrento you can get there from Positano.
Be aware the deeper you get into October the more that area slows down. I think the second week of October you should be fine. Bon Voyage!

Well we still don't know arrival and departure points, so who knows?
Maratea could probably be included more easily than Alberobello.

For Naples / Sorrento / Capri / Amalfi week long trip I would definitely recommend no car

If you did want to see Alberobello, Maratea, Matera, and other towns in that region south of the Amalfi Coast than I would most definitely want a rental car
You can easily make a separate week trip to see that region; the towns mentioned plus Castelmezzano or Pietrapertosa, Paestum, Craco, and Polignano A Mare among others those were the ones that are on my list.

As another thought, you could fly into Naples and spend 2 night staying in the historic city center. Then travel to Sorrento where you can take the local train to Pompeii, ferry to Capri and ferry to Positano. I believe you can also take the local bus to all areas of the Amalfi coast. Sorrento is bigger then the Amalfi coast towns.

Thanks a lot to all of you. Your tips helped me a lot. I will manage my trip according to your suggestions.
Jana

I'm wondering whether Maratea (though I think it's a nice seaside
destination) is a typo for "Matera", which is in Basilicata but can be
combined with Puglia.

My pal acraven--

Maratea is in Basilicata as well as Matera, but it's on the western coast a couple hours south of Naples, where the strangely-shaped province has a tiny bit of coastline. But yes, it's usually Matera that gets mentioned with Alberobello.