First timer

There is a rapid train from Rome to Naples (2 Hours). I would then go on to Sorrento and stay there. You can visit Pompei, Naples, Capri and Amalfi easily from Sorrento- a beautiful and convenient home base. Lots of public transportation options to all of these places. You won't want or need a rental car. Far to many headaches with a car.

For your flights, you will want open jaw tickets ("multi-city" is what these are called on booking engines). You will want to fly from Canada to Poland, then back home from Italy to Canada. If suitable, be sure to check for prices leaving from London ON, Toronto, and Detroit; it may be substantially cheaper to fly from one of these compared with the others (or, they may all be similar - you never know until you check). Similarly, I don't know where your relatives are in Poland; check several nearby cities, if suitable (for last autumn, Warsaw and Krakow were the same price from New York, but Gdansk was $200 more). And finally, for your departure, look at leaving from either Rome or Naples. I use Kayak.com to look for flights, then look at the individual airline websites as well (once you know who flies your route with the best itinerary and the fewest changes). Next, you will want to fly from Poland to Italy, unless you want to spend over 24 hours getting between them by train; I wouldn't even consider this unless you have time to make stopovers along the way, and make this part of your trip. You can use Skyscanner.com to find flights within Europe (both budget carriers and others). Again, be flexible on airports if you can. Rome and Warsaw will probably give you the most options, but Naples is closer to the destinations you listed. As said above, a train from Rome to Naples is easy. Remember that budget carriers do not always fly every route every day, and that they often use "alternate" airports (like Katowice instead of Krakow). Of course, depending on where in Poland you want to go, this may be a plus or a minus. For planning the Italy portion of your trip, look at Rick Steves Italy. He has all the details about what to see, how to get around, the options for seeing Pompeii, etc.

You can also construct your ticket as a round trip to a major hub and then two one ways (to Poland and then from Italy back to the hub). Lufthansa and Air France might be good options to look into for a round trip flight to FRA or CDG. Then you would book separate tickets to Poland, down to Italy, and then from Italy back to FRA or CDG where you connect to the return leg of the original round trip. So, the difference between this approach and the other multi-city approach is (DTW = Detroir, FRA = Frankfurt, WAW = Warsaw, FCO = Rome): Multi-City: Ticket #1: DTW-FRA-WAW Ticket #2: WAW-FCO (or however you want to get to Italy). Ticket #1: FCO-FRA-DTW This approach: Ticket #1: DTW-FRA (round trip!) Ticket #2: FRA-WAW Ticket #3: WAW-FCO Ticket #4: FCO-FRA Ticket #1: FRA-DTW The advantages is that it can be cheaper. The disadvantage is that you MUST allow for ample connection time between the incoming FRA flight and the flight to WAW AND the flight from FCO to FRA to connect to the outgoing flight. If you miss these connections, you can lose your ticket. The result is that you spend more time in transit because you need to take that extra safety buffer, but you save money on the total trip.

We took slower train from Rome to Naples about two hours plus, fast train about hour and half, we went for slow train due to price. Anyway, we did not stay in Naples, had a wedding in Positano. If it were up to us, we would have stayed in Sorrento, easy day trips to Positano, Ravell, Capri. No need at all for a car. Easy trip from Sorrento to all these places and do not need a tour guide, do it on your own. Amalfi Coast is great.

Just a warning Sue -- July will be hot !! For Pompeii in particular, you'll want to go as early in the morning as possible.