Coco6224

We are getting married in 2 weeks and leave the day after for our honeymoon in Rome and Sorrento. Was wondering what adjustments should be made to our itinerary or suggestions on stuff we may be missing!

April 22: Arrive in Rome from New York at about 8am. We will be staying at the Augusta Lucilla Palace by the train station. This day we will try and avoid napping and stroll around the city and see the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and Pantheon, and whatever else comes are way!
April 23 - Tour of the Vatican, St. Peters, Sistine Chapel
April 24 - We have tickets to see the Pope perform his Papal mass in the morning. In the afternoon we have tickets to the Villa Borghese Gallery
April 25 - Morning tour of Colosseum, Roman Fourm, Palatine Hill
April 26 - Free day in Rome -- suggestions?
April 27 - Travel to Naples by Train, private car will take us to Sorrento. We will be staying at the Grand Hotel Royal
April 28 - Free day in Sorrento. Ideally, I would like to be able to take a trip over to the Amalfi Coast and see Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. However, this is a Sunday. Are things closed on Sundays? Would that not be a good day to go?
April 29 - Day trip to Capri and Anacapri.... Blue grotto, worth it?
April 30 - Trip to Pompeii
May 1 - Free day in Sorrento -- suggestions? -- would the Amalfi Coast be better on this day?
May 2 - Free day in Sorrento - suggestions?
May 3 - Fly home out of Naples to New York.

In an attempt to keep the ending of trip a bit more relaxing, we left the last two days as free days in Sorrento. However, if there are any good spots in the surrounding area, places to hike, anything, please suggest.

Also, any restaurant suggestions are always welcomed!


Thanks so much in advance!

LorettaDonovan

I would skip Capri and go to Ischia. The mineral baths are wonderful and Bar Calise is the most amazing spot for drinks and pastry.

jmkay

Six nights in Sorrento is a long time and, in my opinion, it's not really the best place to base yourself for that region. We've been twice and found Positano to be a better base. It's charming, has many good restaurants, and is located centrally for other day excursions. Although pretty, Sorrento feels more like a 'business' center with a couple of nice hotels.

Instead of visiting Capri for a day, why don't you stay there a couple of nights. Nighttime is when Capri is truly special. Hotel la Minerva is my favorite. Hire a boat to take you around the entire island. I'm not sure what the weather will be, but your captain can take you into different grottoes where you can swim. There is easily enough to do on Capri for 2-3 days. And it is beyond beautiful, romantic and charming.

Trying to hit Positano, Amalfi and Ravello in one day is ambitious. Those are truly three separate day trips. You could combine, say, Amalfi and Ravello.

The Walk of the Gods is an amazing hike if you are into that. We used the Sunflower Guide and went on several hikes around the entire Amalfi coast and Capri. Hiking was a great way to see the area and find small, little mountain villages that we would never have seen otherwise.

Congratulations and have a great time.

Coco6224

I JUST read about the Sunflower Guide, and looked into. Cheapest price on Amazon was $75!!! Is that accurate?!

Thanks for your suggestions so far! Definitely can't change our hotel in Sorrento at this point. I heard conflicting reports on what was the better base, Positano vs. Sorrento. Obviously we had to pick one!

Torn about Ischia...but maybe we can do that on one of our free days?!

jmkay

That sounds crazy...perhaps they aren't printing them anymore. I wish I still had mine to send you but we passed it on to someone else. I bought mine off of amazon for about $25 which I thought was pricey too. Library?

AJPeabody

We did a trip to Rome and Sorrento last May. My long and overly detailed trip report:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...o-italy.cfm?48

In Rome, you will be passing near Osteria Barberini, a great little restaurant, and it has a truffle menu. Get a reservation!

I believe Sorrento is a very good base for the coast area. It is a nice small town devoted to tourism and is a transportation hub for the entire area. I could give a lot of tips for the place but you have my trip report for that.

Your plans are fine. Have a really great honeymoon!

broncoal06

I'll second Sorrento as a good base for your daytrip ideas. It makes the Amalfi Coast towns a little more challenging if you plan on multiple towns.

Foodwise, my fiancee and I liked Jhonny's pizza, on the main drag near the train station in Sorrento. Good for a night when you just want to curl up in bed and not go out. We also liked a place in Amalfi with a red awning next to the duomo, where we enjoyed the pesto gnocchi.

In Rome, Tre Scalini in Piazza Navona invented tartufo, and you must get one to go. My opinion, it's the best dessert I've ever had.

jamierin

For your free day in Rome you might consider exploring Trastevere. For a lovely seafood dinner there check out La Gensola.

nytraveler

If you are going in 2 weeks that is still April - too cold for swimming on the Amalfi coast (hotel pools likely not open) but fine for touring.

(We go in late May and they are just opening pools around that time.)
I would spend more days in Rome versus a seaside resort so early in the season.

Mimar

Sorrento as a base is a good choice for so early in the season.

Spend the last night in Naples. You can take time to see the archeological museum with the best stuff from Pompeii. And you'll be close to the airport for your flight home.

A_Brit_In_Ischia

Looks like Amazon USA have yet to list the new edition of the Sunflower guide, only released this month here in Europe?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sorrento-Ama...dp_ob_title_bk

As an alternative, they DO have this - a few years old now, but also including details of 4 walks on Ischia?

http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Amalfi...malfi+Coast%3A

Quite nice at that time of year here:

http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/mayisch

Peter

Bettina222

Hi,
I think your plan sounds great!
Staying in just two places will make it more relaxing than packing up every few days.
From Sorrento, day trips to Pompeii and Capri are perfect.
We booked a private driver who took us a day trip to the Amalfi Coast including stops in Ravello, Positano, and Amalfi. It was a wonderful way to see the area. There were 4 of us traveling so the price wasn't bad at all.
For dinner in Sorrento, we really enjoyed a restaurant by the name of Ristorante Da Filippo.
They will send a driver from the restaurant to pick you up and bring you back again.
It is a complimentary service. We just tipped the driver. We had dinner there twice.
Enjoy!!

Rostra

Hi, Your hotel is named after Commodus' sister Lucilla and if you saw the movie Gladiator she was one of the main stars (Connie Nielsen).

She was an Empress (Augusta) for a few years when her husband co-ruled with Marcus Aurelius but he died and she had to take a reduction in status.

Then Marcus Aurelius died and her younger brother becomes Emperor and she's out of the major leagues all together.

Her brother is crazy and she's afraid and rightly so that he will kill her and her husband and their family because she could put her husband on the throne and resume her good old way of life.

And she tried to assassinate her brother for those reasons but it failed and she was exiled and murdered by him.

But this was 10yrs before Commodus was assassinated, so in real life she didn't get that part like in the movie.

I stayed just a few doors down from that hotel and there a cool restaurant in an ancient ruin a block away.

Trust me you can't miss it standing at the corner + by your hotel that cross street ends in 1 block just walk there |<--+------~ and you'll see this (7) Also http://tinyurl.com/6466o9

I did a google search for that restaurant (I still had my bill from there) and found a post here about it, some of the URL's are dead but there is enough working to follow it thru.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rmini-area.cfm

Also I'm 90% certain your hotel is on the corner and you can see its future location and what the area looked like in 306AD in that model (2) http://tinyurl.com/69gvj6

In the upper left corner area see the round building with a hole in the top that's the restaurant.

Now if you draw a straight line from that to the left edge of the photo and then in the center of that line a straight line up |--|--o you'll notice it's a street with a building* on each side |--*|*--o the left * is where your hotel will be in 1600yrs or so. And hopefully those drawings don't make icons if so it's this with spaces | -- * | * -- o

Have A Wonderful Wedding and Honeymoon!

jmkay

Coco....Here is the sunflower guide from the sunflower site. Looks like it's based in UK, so not sure if you can get it in time, but it's much cheaper than amazon:
http://www.sunflowerbooks.co.uk/Dest...y-and-islands/

tuscanlifeedit

Why not take a day trip to Ischia as well as one to Capri? You have the time.

Another good way to pass a day in Sorrento is a day trip to Naples. Easy to get to by Circumvesuviana, the same train you will use for your journey to Pompeii.

I also suggest using boats rather than busses to get to Positano, and Amalfi. This is important if either of you gets motion sickness. The bus rides on the AC are killers.

Coco6224

Thank you for all your suggestions and comments!!! I appreciate them so much! 8 day till we leave!

TexasAggie

I believe May 1 is Labor Day in Italy, a major holiday. You might want to look into any impact on transportation and the open/close time of museums and sights.

For some of your free time in Rome, consider visiting the myriad of historic churches. There are some world class art treasures to be seen. If you have an interest in Bernini (common after a visit to the amazing Borghese), you could string together your own walk and see some of his other indoor and outdoor masterpieces. Same for Boromini, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, etc.
Other museums we love in Rome are the Etruscan Museum (Villa Guilia) and the Capitoline Museums.

Fr some of your free time in Sorrento, I'd recommend training into Naples to see the National Archaeology Museum and have a pizza. You could stop and visit Herculaneum (smaller than Pompei but just as interesting) on the way to or from Naples. If you're a history buff, I'd recommend a day trip to Paestum with its beautifully preserved ancient Greek temples. It is a bit time consuming to reach from Sorrento but it is doable and completely worthy of the effort.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!
TA, a fellow Italy honeymooner back in '04

jgg

We just came back from a trip where we spent 4 nights in Sorrento. We found it to be a great base for visiting the Amalfi Coast. We did a daytrip to Capri and the Blue Grotto was closed because of the wind but we still loved our day there. I agree that you probably have time to do both Ischia and Capri.

We hired a private driver to do Positano, Ravello and Amalfi. There were 6 of us so that helped with the cost. But we used Gerry with Sorrento First Choice and were extremely happy with him. I suspect that things will still be open on Sunday. We had our free day in Sorrento on Easter Sunday and EVERYTHING was still open there.

Our favorite restaurant in Sorrento was Il Buco. A bit spendy (but then you're on your honeymoon so one splurge should be ok!). The most fabulous food and the nicest servers!

nytraveler

Agree that the Villa Giulia in Rome is fascinating. Not just Etruscan art - but also a lot of household goods. Fascinating were pots of women;s make-up and various tools (tiny scissors, tweezers and implements for applying eye make-up) as well as household goods more than 2,000 years old.

We also loved the church of San Clemente - where you can travel back through time via the lower levels down to the Roman Temple of Mithras (god of the roman army). We were lucky enough to overhear part of a guided tour by an extremely erudite guide (obviously a small private group) who was positively fascinating.

TexasAggie

Great advice from nytraveler about San Clemente. Fascinating history. The Basilica of San Giovanni en Laterno is relatively close.