Southern Italy tour, before and after

Hi Nancy, there’s always plenty to do in Rome. Your RS guidebook has great ideas, plus I stop briefly into any church in Rome I walk by because so many are gorgeous inside!

If you would like an additional city, stay some place like Hotel Mecenate Palace across from the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore which is very handy to take the direct 1-hour fast train from Roma Termini the next morning to Caserta. The royal palace at Caserta is very close to the train station, and there’s B&B’s & a few hotels there. It’s an amazing site - both the palace & the huge gardens.

https://reggiadicaserta.cultura.gov.it/en/

I’ve never been to Naples, so I can’t help at that end.

Before the tour started , we came in a couple of days early and took a cab from our hotel in the Trastevere area to the Borghese (reservations made ahead of time) and then spent the day walking and wandering back. After the tour we took the trains from Naples to Varenna for two full days in the Lake District and then two days in Milan where we saw the Last Supper (reservations made ahead of time) and took a tour of the top of the Duomo. It was a very relaxing and beautiful way to end our trip. Flew out of Milan.

To add, we also did an Eating Europe food tour which was fun and really good food in the Trastevere.

We did a lovely food tour in Trastevere and got tixs for the Borghese which was super. We did not end up staying longer in Naples but I lived there in the 80's so did not feel the need! Enjoy, it is a great tour.

I did a food tour of Testaccio which is a way less touristy area and is full of interesting food stores, a great market and restaurants. Did the tour offered by Eating Europe, book with them, not through Viator. Lasted 3.5 to 4 hours and visited some non-food sites like the Pyramide and Monte Testaccio.

We did the Sicily tour prior and arrived in Rome 3 days early, staying in the tour hotel.
It’s so easy to fill up those extra days in Rome. After the tour we took the train to Orvieto, the on to Assisi. It was an easy train trip, with one change in Rome. Rome was quite busy as we were there right after Easter.

Before our Southern Italy tour we did a walk up Janiculum hill from Trastavere- it was a gorgeous view of most of Rome from there and has quite a bit of history with statues and monuments to different people who were important to Italian independence. It was not crowded up there and was a pleasant uphill walk. We also visited the Borghese gallery as the two tours we have been on that included Rome did not include that. It is well worth it.
From Naples you could visit Caserta palace which is where some of Queen Amidala’s palace scenes were filmed for Star Wars, we went there years ago but not on the southern Italy tour this past fall.

I just finished the South Italy tour and likewise added a few days ahead in Rome and a couple of days after in Naples (flying home out of NAP). My favorite add-on was getting tickets to the opera in Napoli at the Teatro di San Carlo. It was a breathtaking performance in a glorious, historically renowned space, and it's a short walk from the hotel where you stay for the tour (the Oriente). We changed hotels to the Hotel Convento after the tour ended, but it would have been just as well and much more convenient to just have extended at the Oriente, which was a very comfortable and service-oriented hotel. For our other day and a half in Naples, we took the local train to Herculaneum and booked a guide to meet us there, revisited the Archaeological museum (which is on the tour), and cooled off in the Naples Underground tunnels.

In Rome before the tour began, we did one major thing each day that was not on the tour itself: Day 1 at the Vatican Museums and St Peters, Day 2 at the Colosseum and Forum, and Day 3 on a tour of the Borghese prior to the tour's starting at 4pm. That was a very nice pace and gave us plenty of recovery time after 2-3pm each day.