Southern Italy

I found this information by googling Sorrento to Matera: http://www.marinobus.it/orario_autolinee.asp?arrivo=matera&partenza=napoli Looks to be about 4 - 4 1/2 hours, and €19... The bus station is in the new part of the town and you walk down into the sassi (the old part of town where the cave houses are). Its a 10-15 minute walk. Don't know if there is a train station - would probably involve getting a train from Naples and then getting as close as you can and taking a bus...... Unfortunately Rick Steves' Italy books doesn't go further south than the Amalfi coast (unless its updated for this year).

We actually found a direct route from Salerno (station Irno) to Bari (station Centrale). Bari will get you easy access to Matera and to Alberobello. This is the link:
http://fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/query.exe/en?ld=3&seqnr=4&ident=en.028406168.1340418908&sortConnections=minDeparture However, I just goggled OBB Scotty and this will bring up the route planner. Click on the site and it will bring up the "route planner" where you can departure and arrival cities. When you get on the site - go to the top left and change language from Deutsch to English. Another tip, most Italian cities have more than more train station - so make sure you enter the station name. If you just have a city with no station, sometimes the site cannot pull up a train or bus and it looks like there is no route.