First of all, thanks to everyone on the forum for all the advice for our first trip to this part of Italy.
We had picture perfect weather every day, save for one morning. We spent 4 nights in each city
Landed in Rome, took the train to Salerno, stayed at Hotel Plaza great choice for access to the train station. Lovely staff, good breakfast, rooms are small and bare bones, good showers. Would stay there again. From Salerno we took the train to Paestum one day, not too crowded, a few school groups. Enjoyed the site and the museum. Another day we took the train to Pompeii. Rather crowded, got there at 9 when they opened. I was done by about 2, I took a breather while my husband spent about another 90 minutes. Had a good dinner at Melius in Pompeii Restaurants worth mentioning in Salerno are Al Dente, excellent lemon pasta and bruschetta, I wish we had goon there more than once, and Osteria Dei Sapori. We also visited MInerva gardens while in Salerno.
From Salerno we took the ferry to Amalfi Town where we stayed at an AirBNB above the town, Beautiful views, lots of steps to get there, there was an elevator part way up but except for when we had our luggage, we took the stairs. Amalfi town was busy, less so at night. We took the bus to Bomerano and hiked the Path of the Gods. Instead of taking the bus back we hiked down to Positano and took the ferry back to Amalfi Town. Nothing special to me about Positano, but the Path of the Gods hike was beautiful. We took the Amica shuttle one morning to Ravello after giving up on the bus- worth the 10 euro each. The villas were gorgeous. I regret not spending more time there in Ravello. Instead we hiked down to Minori and took the ferry back, because at that point we didn't think we had it in us to walk the Path of Lemons. If I had it to do over again we would have spent more time in Ravello and saved Path of Lemons for another day, as we didn't get back to it. Our other full day we took the ferry to Vietri Sul Mar. it was a Sunday, lots of people but not too bad, we went into the church at the end of Mass, the locals were celebrating someone's 30th birthday on the church steps after services. It was fun to watch. We had an excellent lunch of tapas at Passariello Cantina Mediterranea. If we probably should have went to Vietri Sul Mar from Salerno, it's just one stop on the train, but the one free afternoon we had in Salerno we needed a rest. Still, we should have went in the evening, but getting anywhere by water is nice too.
Restaurants worth mentioning are Il Chiostro , La Perna for pizza, Donna Stella under the lemon pergola, good lasagne and ravioli with lemon sauce and Le Arcate in Atrani.
From Amalfi Town we took the ferry to Sorrento, stayed at a small family owned hotel right on the main square, Palazzo Jannuzzi, we had a junior suite. Charming breakfast room, lovely staff. Nice and quiet despite being right above Bar Fauno, the hotel is well soundproofed. Would stay here again. From Sorrento we went to Herculaneum and Mt Vesuvius. That was our only morning when the weather wasn't perfect. though by the time we hiked back down from Vesuvius, the weather cleared for our afternoon at Herculaneum, which I enjoyed very much. We had a good lunch at Pappamonte. The bus ride up to Vesuvius was fine, waiting for our bus to take us back down to town was chaotic with so may buses and cars coming an going. Also we took the circumvesuviana
to and from Herculaneum, an experience I do not plan on ever doing again. Standout restaurants in Sorrento- Chanteclers Tratorria and Gnocchi-osteria di famiglia-, excellent homemade gnocchi- the real stuff, wish we would have gone there at least one more time and skipped La Fenice, and La Basilica, especially La Fenice, it was terrible, ordered veal for something different and it was
like cutting leather. Every night after dinner we seemed to find ourselves stopping at Mario's bakery on our way back to the hotel.