Hi,
can anyone give me any suggestions in my travel to Italy. Have booked a tour of Italy/Sicily, then have 8 days free in Italy. The dilemma is that we would like to spend a day visiting Sorrento & do the Amalfi coast & another day to re-visit Pompeii with added excursions to Mt Vesuvius & Herculaneum. The plan then is to go back to Florence & do a day trip to Sienna & San Gimignano. Would we be better to travel by train straight from Sorrento to Florence or vice versa?. Are there any day tours from Rome to these places that don't cost an arm or a leg. Time is the essence as I want to spend at least 3-4 days in Rome. I realise I may have to sacrifice one or the other. My husband would prefer not to hire a car & drive ourselves, so we will have to rely on an organised tour or get ourselves to these places by public transport.
Any suggestions woud be great.

Touristy

T - Organised day trips from Rome are expensive, unfortunately. Pompeii, for example, is usually about € 100 ...

There are no organised day-trips to the Amalfi Coast from Rome - but it's possible to do it by public transport. It would be a long day ... but feasible with an early start.

But with your plans it would be best to base for 1/2 nights in Sorrento IMO.
Sorrento-Florence or vice versa is about a 5 hour journey by train. Which way's best would depend on where you're flying home from, I guess ...

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Hi t,

I don't think that you need to sign up for a tour to visit the places you wish to go.

From where do you start, and where do you finish your 8 days?

What did you see on your tour?

You have 8 days. You want to spend 3 or 4 of them in Rome, which leaves barely 4 days (not counting travel time). You want to see:

1) Sorrento
2) Amalfi Coast
3) Pompei
4) Vesuvius
5) Herculanaeum
6) Florence
7) San Gimignano
8) Siena
And you didn't mention Capri...

I don't see how you can visit everything on this list unless you eliminate sleeping and eating and never stop moving for the 4 days.

I suggest you choose EITHER the Sorrento/Amalfi Coast area or the Florence/Siena area but not both.

ttt

Copied and pasted :

Author: touristy
Date: 12/23/2005, 02:04 am
Dear Steve, Ira & Jean

thankyou for your advice. We are doing a tour of Italy & Sicily. So to answer your question Jean I am not planning on re-visiting Capri. The CIT brochure has a day drive of the Amalfi coastline from Sorrento for about $69 for the day so we think we will catch an early train to Sorrento-visit Herculaneum & Mt Vesuvius & maybe re-visit Pompeii (I'm an ancient history fanatic & love photography), then the next day do the amalfi coast drive. If we can get a direct train from sorrento (may have to change over in Rome) to Florence & do the Tempo day trip to Sienna & San Gigmanano . The rest of the time will be in Rome.
Does that sound logical or am I dreaming???I keep getting told that the transport system in Italy is easy to use.

Once again any advice is helpful.

thanks
touristy

T - I wouldn't go to the expense of an organised day-trip along the Amalfi Coast.

$69 is very expensive when you can get a day-pass and use the buses for about € 5 ...

If you do it independantly you could go one way by bus and the other by boat - then you get the best of both worlds.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Hi touristy,

I don't think it's realistic to try for Herculaneum, Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius all in one day. I spent 4 1/2 hours at Pompeii alone, and it was my second trip. Also, are you aware that there is quite a hike involved to get to the top of Vesuvius? Regardless of the difficulty (hot), it takes a while.

I would highly recommend visiting the Archeological Museum in Napoli, with all the Pompeii artifacts! Fabulous!

Buon viaggio!